


Fairy Dreams For Uncle Sherlock

by LadyGlinda



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Dream Sex, Dreams, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tales Are Gruesome, M/M, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock is a Damsel in Distress, Sibling Incest, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGlinda/pseuds/LadyGlinda
Summary: Three years have passed since Sherrinford, and the brothers Holmes are more estranged than ever before. John is living with Sherlock again. Sherlock reluctantly reads a fairy tale for Rosie. It causes him to have a weird dream. And that is just the beginning.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson & Rosamund Mary "Rosie" Watson
Comments: 115
Kudos: 90





	1. Snow-white

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SlytherinsDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherinsDragon/gifts), [Snoozydog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snoozydog/gifts).



> Many thanks to my dears SlytherinsDragon and Snoozydog for their wonderful encouragement.

_"Oh that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the embroidery frame!" Not very long after she had a daughter, with a skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony, and she was named Snow-white._

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“Bedtime is at eight straight.”

Sherlock nodded. “As always, John. We’ll both go to our respective beds at eight.”

John glowered at him, looking a tad annoyed. “Mrs Hudson will be here in half an hour.”

Sherlock sighed. It was a bit disappointing that John didn’t value his babysitting qualities a bit higher. If it hadn’t been for Mrs Hudson’s weakly bridge afternoon appointment, he wouldn’t have been asked to babysit at all. “Of course. The adult will take over then.”

John had the decency to look sheepish. Not that Sherlock really blamed him. It wasn’t as if he was famous for taking care of others. Or for not getting lost in his mind palace if an idea hit him. Or for not experimenting with chemical substances. But he hadn’t done that for quite a while. It had become a bit boring. Everything had become a bit boring in recent years. Since John had stopped blogging about their cases as he was hardly part of them anymore, there were not many clients searching for Sherlock's help. He could have taken over the blogging but he didn’t actually care. He only helped out the police most of the time and that was fine with him. Since he had finally gotten access to the trust of Grandma Jacrofta when he had become forty (Mycroft had gotten his at twenty…) as she had assumed he would have grown out of his drug habits by then, he wasn’t in dire need of money anymore. Quiet days had dawned on the middle-aged detective, he thought a tad sourly.

“No more chocolate!”

Sherlock sighed. Didn’t the man have to finally leave? “No, John, of course not.”

“But Daddy!”

John looked at his daughter sternly while he was closing his jacket. “Rosie…”

The little girl in the pink pyjamas sighed as deeply as a four-year-old was capable of. “Okaaay.”

Sherlock smirked. “Trust me, John. No sweets for our sweet girl.”

Rosie rolled her big blue eyes in an almost Holmesian way, and Sherlock didn’t miss the defiant glare in them. Despite being dressed like a flamingo, that one had fire just like her mother.

“I rely on you.” John pointed at Sherlock and grabbed his doctor’s bag for his shift in the clinic. He had started to work there just a few months ago and Sherlock assumed that the job was not that much to his liking, giving his rather grumpy mood. Or perhaps it was because of his break-up with his latest crush, Amanda. Or Miranda? Sherlock couldn’t remember, and he hardly made an effort at keeping track with the queue of John’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriends. At least he didn’t bring them home or introduced them to Rosie. When he ever did that, he had told Sherlock, he would be sure it was the right woman. Not to take Mary’s place as her mother as that was not possible. But to be a female person of reference for her. He was always worried that she could lack that even though she was surrounded by women – Molly and Mrs Hudson, her devoted godmothers, John’s sister Harry and her wife, Lucy, John’s mum. Even Sergeant Donovan had taken a liking to the girl and served as some frightening role model.

In fact, Rosie wasn’t missing out on anything, Sherlock was sure. She was growing quickly and resembled Mary more and more.

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she turned to Sherlock as soon as the door of the flat had closed behind her father. “Now, Uncle Sherlock!”

At first he had told her that he wasn't actually her uncle. But John had glowered at him so he had accepted the title. Perhaps it was even fitting. They were not related by blood but he had taken a surprisingly strong liking to the little girl. And John had always felt like family after all. “You heard your dad. No more chocolate. You’ve already brushed your teeth.” This girl had a serious sweet tooth.

“No, Uncle Sherlock! I meant that you have to do it now!”

“Oh. That.” Sherlock shuddered. “I could tell you a story about pirates!” he suggested with a wide grin. “Bloodthirsty and…”

“No. Fairy tale!” Rosie crossed her arms in a no-nonsense gesture that reminded him of Mary, and the glare in her eyes definitely resembled John on a particular stubborn day.

Sherlock sighed deeply. “Oh Lord. What have I done to deserve this? Fine. What should it be tonight?”

“Snow-white!” Rosie screeched, delighted.

“That again? But you know in the end she gets saved by a prince, and you hate princes!”

“True, but I love the nasty stepmother!”

Sherlock couldn’t help but grin. She really was a special little girl. “Fine then. Snow-white it is then.”

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“So… She’s sleeping. I will stay so you are free to do whatever you want.” Mrs Hudson sat down in John’s armchair.

Sherlock nodded. His throat was a bit sore from making voices. All the dwarfs! Was that the current politically correct term at all? Certainly not. And that ghastly queen/stepmother… What a portrayal of women – ordering a child to be killed just because it was prettier than her. Stupid. And at the very end, a prince who fell in love with a corpse! He took a large gulp from the tea Mrs Hudson had brought him. Another weird mixture of all kinds of herbs but quite tasty and balm for his pained throat. “It is so idiotic. I mean, if someone dies from a poisoned apple, nobody can make them come back by taking the piece of apple out of their throat! She’d been dead for several days at least! They would have had to call her Rotten-flesh!”

Mrs Hudson smiled. “With your scientific mind, it must be horrible to read something that unreal. And even out loud. But Rosie loves Grimm’s fairy tales and they are classics.”

“They are pretty cruel,” Sherlock had to concede. Probably not that much nicer than the pirate stories he had made his brother tell him when he had been little.

Damn… Where had this come from? He had never recalled that before.

Mycroft… Where was he even these days? Sherlock had not seen him for months. Basically they only met when the entire family went to Sherrinford to visit Eurus. Mummy insisted on Mycroft coming along. Since they had forgiven him for deceiving them about her whereabouts, Mummy was eager to have Mycroft and Eurus get along with each other. A great plan if Eurus had perhaps started to speak again. But after three years, that seemed highly unlikely. So it had been some time since any one of them had gone there. Even Mummy must have realised that it was rather pointless.

And Mycroft never showed up to give him cases these days. There might still be surveillance but that had to be rather boring. Sherlock had stayed out of trouble for quite a while now. He had become a thoroughly good boy. And Mycroft? Sherlock wondered if he should call him. But probably his brother would drop dead from surprise if he heard from him…

“You look tired. Almost like Rosie,” Mrs Hudson stated.

Sherlock looked at his phone. It was not even half past eight. But damn it. He _was_ tired. Entertaining a little girl with silly stories was hard work. “I think I’ll just go to bed. Yes, yes, I know,” he waved Mrs Hudson’s scandalised gaping away. “Sometimes even I have to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Sherlock.” She gave him a tender look. “Get some rest, my boy.”

Rest from what? Being bored? Well, perhaps tomorrow Lestrade would show up with a juicy case. Preferably a ‘10’. One could always hope!

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

 _[Sherlock is dreaming. He always knows when that’s the case. His enormous brain is never really quiet. A part of it is always awake and aware. But the part that has to regenerate itself during the night indulges in dreams like any common goldfish brain. And Sherlock might know that he is dreaming but he can’t influence what happens in those dreams. He drifts in and out of his dream-persona, seeing the participants interact in one moment and living in the events of the dream in the next; sometimes it all happens at the same time. And he groans in his sleep when he realises what he is dreaming about. Of course… The silly fairy tale… Who is this? God… Why has he conjured_ her _up after all those years? He hasn’t thought of her in ages and she has finally stopped sending those annoying texts, obviously fed up with never getting a reply.]_

A woman is standing in the middle of a large, opulently furnished room with gold and diamonds blinking everywhere. Not just any woman though. The Woman… And there is no doubt whatsoever who she is in this colourful dream. The evil queen. Snow-white’s depraved stepmother.

Dressed in, well, nothing except for high heels, just like the first time Sherlock had seen her, Irene/the Queen preens in front of a mirror that covers an entire wall of the room.

"Looking-glass upon the wall,  
Who is fairest of us all?"

she thunders, sounding as dramatic as ever, a smug smile on her thin, red lips. Clearly she expects to be told that of course she is the prettiest, loveliest, sexiest etc., etc. Her eyes narrow in outrage when a voice that sounds strangely mechanical answers,

"Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true,  
But Snow-white fairer is than you."

“How dare you!” she screeches, and the mirror vibrates under the threat in her words.

 _[_ _Now she will order the girl to be killed. The conscious part of Sherlock's brain wonders who will be the hunter who is supposed to take care of the unwanted stepdaughter. He doesn’t have to wait long. A man, dressed in something that looks like an ugly green uniform, with a young face but grey hair, appears in the room as if having been summoned.]_

“Queen Irene, you asked for me?”

“Yes, Greg. I want you to bring Snow-white into the woods, kill her and bring me her heart as I want to eat it. Anything wrong with that?” she asks like a viper when the man grimaces.

Lestrade bows to her, his expression is indifferent now. “Of course I will do as you wish, my queen.”

And Irene laughs like a maniac and a picture of the girl in question appears in the mirror. Her face is pretty but not in any conventional way. She has weird cat eyes and sharp cheekbones and her hair is black and wild and curly. She looks frightened and innocent and Irene hates her with vigour.

_[Hadn’t he seen it coming? This is embarrassing! He is a consulting detective! The only one in the world! Not some silly princess with black hair and white skin and red li-… Sherlock groans again, almost loud enough to be heard by Mrs Hudson, who is reading a book in his living room.]_

And then Sherlock/Snow-white is standing in the middle of a dark wood full of trees that are growing into the sky. It is windy and the trees are bending against each other threateningly. He is freezing as he is only wearing a thin night dress and has no shoes on his feet. “Please, dear Mr Lestrade,” he begs in a high-pitched voice. “Let me live. I will run away and never come back.”

Lestrade is holding a long, sharp knife. His face is ashen and his dark-brown eyes look down at him full of sympathy. “Yes, my pretty child. Run and make sure nobody finds you.”

_[Sherlock sees himself in his dress, running deeper into the woods, and he can feel the stones under his feet at the same time. ‘Typical for Greg,’ he thinks fondly. The man would never harm him.]_

He is hungry and freezing and almost exhausted enough to just sink down and die. But Sherlock drags himself forward, desperate to find a place to warm himself up and get something to eat. Finally he finds a barely visible path and follows it, and after what seems like ages it leads him to a tiny, crooked house. It is old but neat, and in the biggest room there is a table with a white cloth on it, laid with seven little plates and tiny glasses full of wine. Sherlock picks a biscuit from the first plate and takes the smallest bite from a cheese sandwich on the next one and drinks a bit from the glass next to the third plate. And then, sated, he stumbles further into the house and discovers a bedroom with seven little beds. He tests several of them – too short, too dirty, damaged mattress, stinking… - before he finally fits into the last one. His feet are still hanging over the mattress but he falls into a deep sleep as soon as his head touches the pillow.

_[Sherlock watches as the door opens up and the dwarfs, tired from their day in the depths of the mountain, stumble into their home, eager for a meal, a hot bath and some rest. Sherlock rolls his closed eyes when he recognises them. There, the plump one: Mike Stamford, grinning like the Cheshire cat at the prospect of food. The scrawny one with the ugly face: Philip Anderson himself. And of course there is John – short, stocky and grim, his stomach growling. For whatever reason, he is carrying his doctor’s bag. Next to him, an insane smile on his dirty face, stands Jim Moriarty, right next to Mister-Pretty-Teeth Culverton Smith and tall, sickeningly thin Charles Augustus Magnussen, a nasty smirk playing around his lips that cries for another headshot. The seventh dwarf is the only female one: Molly Hooper, as flat-chested and bearded as her companions but the smallest of the bunch, her ponytail whipping as she reaches for the smallest of the chairs to sit. Friends (well, at least John and Molly) and enemies combined as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Dreams are funny things, Sherlock thinks.]_

The dwarfs look at the table, scratching their heads.

“Who cut with my knife?” the Smith dwarf asks, a grimace making his horrible face even uglier than it already is.

“Who the hell ate from my plate?” Little John demands to know.

“Who took my ginger nut?” thunders the indignant voice of Mike Stamford.

Everybody is talking – or rather: complaining – at the same time and eventually, the dwarfs swarm out and look into every corner of their house. It takes them only a few minutes until they discover that their beds were messed with, too, and it is the short, pale Jim dwarf who finally discovers their unexpected visitor.

“Oooh. Look at that pretty darling in my bed!” he croons, licking his lips.

_[Sherlock shudders. This is not how he had told the story to Rosie… The Grimm dwarfs were no psychopaths…]_

“Oh, how sweet she is,” breathes Molly and excitedly fumbles with her beard.

_[Sherlock sighs.]_

Philip even touches the black curls with an expression of awe. “Why is it on our crime scene?”

_[Sherlock giggles.]_

“Can we keep it?” Charles Augustus greedily stares down at the sleeping intruder and attempts to raise the little girl’s dress with one spidery hand. “I want to piss on it.”

“Yes, we must keep it. I want to turn it into a thing,” groans Smith, rubbing his hands together.

_[Sherlock tries to wake up desperately – with no success.]_

“Nonsense,” John says sternly and bats Charles Augustus’ hand away from Sherlock's dress. “We’ll let her sleep and then ask her what she wants tomorrow morning. Keep your hands off of her!”

And so it happens. When seven-year-old Snow-white alias forty-year-old detective Sherlock wakes up in the morning, he is terrified. He is looking up into seven strange faces under silly pointed hats, looking down on him with all kinds of expressions, some of them frankly terrifying. One of them even flinches his face quite nastily before a short, stocky dwarf hits him on the hand and tells him to stop before he introduces himself to Sherlock as John and asks him what has brought him here. When Sherlock tells them the story of the evil stepmother and the escape into the woods with the help of a merciful hunter, John offers him to stay. “You will have to cook for us and clean the house and behave and…”

“...and suck my cock!” throws in Jim, and Culverton and Charles Augustus cackle like witches, and John silences them with a look.

“...you can stay with us, and nobody will harm you or touch you inappropriately,” he finishes his sentence with a stern side-glance at the three nasty dwarfs, who let their shoulders slump at being chided by what is apparently their boss.

_[Sherlock knows that if he was able to influence his dreams, he would have told his alter ego to run as fast as he can, alas, he can’t do anything. He dreads the rest of this dream as it can only get nasty. But obviously, there is a jump in time, because when he next sees himself, he has grown up – a sixteen-year-old version of what he would have looked at this age if he had been a girl. Snow-white has apparently survived the inevitable attacks of his stepmother and his three creepy companions thus far – and he was spared having to experience them. Also, he didn't have to watch himself scrubbing the floors of the modest little house or almost burn it down with his cooking attempts. But oh-oh. There comes the witch, looking suspiciously not like Irene but his brother’s elderly colleague Lady Smallwood, dressed in rags. What is she doing here?! Anyways, she is presenting the famous poisoned apple with her arthritic fingers and there is no John to be seen… So Sherlock/Snow-white has been saved from the too-tight lace and the deadly comb. Sherlock's throat gets tight when he thinks of what will in all probability happen now – he will watch his dream-self die and won’t be able to do anything about it.]_

“An apple, pretty young girl?”

Sherlock, sitting on the stairs of the house, obviously deep in his thoughts and having not noticed the ugly visitor, winces at the nasty old voice. “No, sorry. I am not allowed to take anything from strangers.”

“Very smart,” nods the witch. She then cuts the apple in two halves and bites into the green half. “See. Fine apple.”

_[Sherlock feels sick at her furtive look. How can his dream persona be so stupid?! But of course the red half of the apple is taken from the wrinkled hand and bitten into. With the expected consequences… The man who is lying on his bed turns and gags in his sleep as the poison seems to infiltrate his system. He has never dreamt before that he is dying and it is a ghastly experience. This dream is way too vivid to be bearable.]_

In the castle, far away from the house in which the dwarfs now come home and find their Snow-white dead (and Culverton claps his hands and cries out, “She’s a thing now!” and Molly kicks his bum, and Jim proceeds to finger the corpse and gets a blow to the chin from John, and Charles A. proceeds to take out his long, limp cock but falls like a tree when John catches him with his other fist), the Queen, now back in her usual shape, asks the mirror again who the prettiest is, and it answers,

“You are the fairest now of all.”

And the queen laughs in glee and twists and turns in front of the mirror, showing off her bony body to nobody in particular.

The dwarfs can’t bring it over themselves to bury their companion in the cold earth, so they make a coffin of glass for her instead and keep the body in it; a body that looks as if it’s just sleeping, and the coffin gets put up on the mountain near the house.

_[Who will be the bloody prince? Sherlock wonders. Who hasn’t played a role in this insane dream yet? Dimmock? ‘Boring.’ Mrs Hudson?! God no! And then he watches the king’s son approach on his white horse, and even before he can really see the man, he knows who it is, and he makes a strangled noise in his throat, which still feels as if the piece of apple is trapped in it. And that is how he feels now – trapped.]_

“No, we cannot give it to you for all the gold in the world,” John says, shaking his head. All the dwarfs are standing in front of their house, to which the prince has hurried after discovering the beauty in the coffin.

The prince in the red three-piece-suit gives him a pleading look. “Please. I can’t live without looking at Snow-white for the rest of my days.”

Eventually, the seven dwarfs give in, and so the minions of Prince Mycroft – six men who look completely identical in their black suits, wearing black sunglasses – shoulder the coffin to bring it to their master’s castle. But one of them stumbles over a stone and the coffin gets shaken and the piece of poisoned apple flies out of Sherlock's throat. He sits up only moments later, almost bashing his head in at the glass. He opens the coffin and looks at the prince, who is riding behind his men and his precious new possession and is beaming at him in delighted surprise. “Where am I? What happened?”

And the prince answers with a soft smile and a tear in his right eye, “You are near me. Come with me to my father's castle and you shall be my bride."

 _[Sherlock is lying on his bed shock frozen while his dream-version scrambles out of the glass coffin to wrap his arms around the handsome prince’s neck. Mycroft looks about like he did at twenty-five. Slim, elegant, attractive. And the look in his eyes is the one of a man in love._ _‘Stupid!’_ _Sherlock groans. He can’t be in love with someone who a second ago he thought was dead! He doesn’t even know anything about the person he just proposed to! And why does Snow-white agree without even thinking about it?! It’s a stranger!_

 _But much worse, of course, is that the man is not a stranger to_ Sherlock _… He’s his own big brother for God’s sake! This is just a dream but damn it… How could that have happened? Sherlock watches, with horror, how they get married, and how Queen Irene gets forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she drops dead with barbecue-feet. This is where the fairy tale ends. But not Sherlock's dream…]_

He finds himself on a large bed. He can feel the soft mattress beneath him. His prince, his husband, stands before him in a black tuxedo, looking gorgeous.

_[Sherlock wonders if the prince has found out so far that he has in fact married a man. But in these dream worlds, everything is fluid. And so he is not at all surprised when Mycroft peels him out of his wedding dress and shows nothing but devotion and reverence at his decidedly male body._

‘ _Fine. It’s enough now,’ he thinks. ‘I need to wake up!’ Alas, it doesn’t happen.]_

“My love, I have waited so long to make love to you. Please honour me.” And he sits down next to his bride/groom and suddenly he is naked as if all clothing has just melted from his body when they touch and kiss.

_[Sherlock is hyperventilating in his sleep. This feels too real. He can taste his brother when they kiss with vigour. He can feel the hot, pulsating flesh of Mycroft's large cock when he strokes it. It’s full and heavy and Sherlock can even smell the musk when droplets of pre-come appear in the red slit._

_And he is horrified because he is hard and throbbing in his pants and this is wrong, this is Mycroft and THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!]_

Sherlock/Snow-white clutches to his new husband and moans in delight when the prince slides into him after licking every inch of his body and sucking his cock, and Sherlock spreads his cheeks with both hands to give him easier access and he feels so full and it’s just the best thing that ever happened to him and fuck the nasty stepmother, may her ashes watch him now and groan in envy at this fantastic sex he is getting!

_[Sherlock is whimpering in his sleep, his body is shaking as if he was being fucked for real. He can feel Mycroft's breath hot on his face and then his brother claims his mouth in another deep kiss while he is hammering into him like there’s no tomorrow.]_

∞∞∞ _v∞∞∞_

And Sherlock finally woke up when he came, and for a moment, he could still feel his anus being stretched around his brother’s large prick and could feel him erupt in him in endless hot spurts.

But of course the only one who was spurting was Sherlock himself, soiling his pants and the sheets with an amount of semen he had never had the misfortune to produce before. He panted and felt horrified to the bone while the mighty orgasm was still ripping through his body and his groin felt as if it had been set on fire. So his body screamed in delight and he was close to screaming the house down in horror. With all the willpower he could muster, he shuddered through the aftermath of his climax before he left his bed on wobbly legs, poked his head out and hurried to the bathroom when he was sure that the house was silent. He forewent a shower as it would wake up everybody but scrubbed himself down and buried his soiled pants deep in the laundry. He took a wet towel with him so he could clean up the sheets without having to remove them tonight.

This had been the single most embarrassing dream of his life. Coming from a goddamn fairy tale! He would never read Rosie another one!

And when he pulled the blanket up to his chin, the wet sheets clinging nastily to his body, he caught himself thinking of his brother – the brother he had not seen for a long time. And when he finally drifted back to sleep, he thought that maybe the dream had just wanted to tell him that he was missing him. As a brother! He had even thought of calling him before reading the tale! There was nothing to it! And he heard a voice quietly laugh in his mind and he huffed and forced it away. The rest of the night, his dreams were harmless and he slept until eight. And when he awoke, he still felt terrified.


	2. The Frog King Or Iron Henry/ Anthea

_And when she looked to see where the voice came from, there was nothing but a frog stretching his thick ugly head out of the water. "Oh, is it you, old waddler?" said she, "I weep because my golden ball has fallen into the well." - "Never mind, do not weep," answered the frog, "I can help you; but what will you give me if I fetch up your ball again?"_

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“Hey. You’re late.”

“Apologies,” Mycroft said, greeting Tom with a squeeze of his arm. “The Prime Minister was quite insistent on enquiring me about matters he really doesn’t understand anything of.” He had only reached the Royal Albert Hall ten minutes before the concert was going to begin. At least he’d had time to change into the dinner jacket he had brought to the office in the morning, knowing he would not make it home in time.

Tom Pine smiled. “Nothing new then under the sun. Ready for two hours of gorgeous music?”

 _He_ was certainly gorgeous, Mycroft thought. The tall, black-haired man, dressed in a slim-fit black suit, clean shaven and stunning as ever, his blue eyes fixed on him.

They had met up about ten times now and the look in Tom’s eyes told him that the young lawyer was going to be insistent tonight, too, if Mycroft let him. Insistent of taking their acquaintance to the next level once the concert was over.

Mycroft should be happy about the man’s eagerness. He was smart, no goldfish, with perfect manners, charm and a body to die for, as far as Mycroft could tell after not having gotten closer to his date than sharing rather tame kisses.

But he knew in the end they would both feel bad about it. What good could come out of a relationship when one of the partners was secretly in love with someone else? Someone who had similar black curls as Tom, was resembling him in height and frame and had even more prominent cheekbones? Someone who might never know what Mycroft was feeling for him as he would never accept, let alone return the sentiment.

Mycroft should dive into the passionate, affectionate relationship that Tom’s eyes were offering him and finally forget about his forsaken crush on his own little brother. But whatever he had tried so far, it had not worked. And it would not be fair at all if he let Tom believe that they could ever be what he desired, whatever Tom might see in him in the first place.

His eyes had given him away. He saw Tom’s face fall but a moment later, the younger man smiled sadly. “Come, let’s go inside.”

Mycroft was close to apologising but he knew that whatever he said would not make this better. Sometimes silence was kinder. And they could still enjoy the music together.

He wondered what Sherlock was doing now. He had not seen him for ages. Not in person, at least. But he had never escaped his surveillance and care from the distance. And tonight John Watson would be working again and Sherlock would be at home with the little girl as it was bridge night for Mrs Hudson. Sherlock and his family… Mycroft had not seen any signs of him and the doctor being more than friends these days, which he had expected to happen. But his brother had everything he needed in Baker Street, so much was sure. He didn’t need Mycroft meddling in his life. It had never done any good so Mycroft had retreated and Sherlock obviously did not miss him – exactly how it was to be expected.

Of course Mycroft did miss his brother tremendously but given their complicated relationship and the fact that Sherlock had almost died during the games of their incarcerated sister because Mycroft had failed him, it was certainly the best to part ways as it only caused them trouble and pain, just for different reasons. Unfortunately, being separated from Sherlock for so long now had not changed anything about Mycroft's feelings for him and more than once Mycroft had caught himself staring at the CCTV camera feed to just get a glimpse of Sherlock's beautiful face.

When the two not-really-friends-and-never-to-be-lovers were sitting side by side in their seats in the darkened concert hall, Mycroft could feel how lonely they both were, and when Tom briefly pressed his hand, his heart ached at everything that could have been but was not to be because he chose the pining for someone he couldn’t have over being with someone he could have.

Nobody had ever accused the two brothers Holmes of being uncomplicated…

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“No.”

“But Uncle Sherlock…!”

“No.” Sherlock crossed his arms and shook his head so hard that his curls were bouncing. “No way. Pirate story, yes. A story about elephants. Or ants. Or clowns. Whatever. No fairy tales.” He shuddered. No fairy tales, no dreams. Everything had returned to what passed as normal for him since that night. And that’s how it should remain. In fact, he had tried not to think of his brother at all, let alone had he contacted him as he knew he should have done a long time ago, and it made him feel uneasy and he did not want that.

“I want the ‘Frog King’!” screeched little Rosie, and then John was suddenly standing in the living room like a grumpy monument as if he had beamed himself into the room.

“What’s this fuss about?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

They were on good terms again, usually… But sometimes, like right now, Sherlock couldn’t help but feel reminded of the John he’d had to deal with after Mary’s death. John had not raised his hand against him since the Smith case, of course not. But he seemed to be angry quite often these days. Well, he had a lot on his plate.

“Uncle Sherlock won’t tell me a fairy tale,” complained Rosie, her bottom lip looking suspiciously wobbly.

“And why not?” John turned to him.

Sherlock could hardly tell him the truth. _‘After the last time, I dreamt of being the princess and was saved and then fucked by my brother and I can’t endure such a result again.’_ So he settled for, “I just think that the role of women in society is portrayed very…”

“Sherlock… She is _four_. And you knew her mother. And me. Do you really think she will grow up thinking that women have to be saved by men and that people get married to other people they just met like five minutes ago? Even Rosie knows these are just stories. And you told them to her before. And since when have you become a feminist?!”

John looked tired and confused and there was an undertone that said he was beginning to think that Sherlock just didn’t like spending time with the little girl. He sounded hurt.

Sherlock shook his head. “I know. Sorry. I will tell her whatever she wants.”

A moment later two little arms were slung around his neck and a small, damp mouth pressed a kiss on his cheek. “You’re the best uncle!”

“I am your _only_ uncle, and actually…”

“Let it rest, Sherlock,” John said but his eyes were twinkling now. “Thank you for your support. You know she loves you.”

Sherlock smiled. “So do I.” It would all be fine. In the end, this was a story about a _frog_. Fine, it would turn into a prince in the end but nobody would save the princess from an evil stepmother this time. There wouldn’t be any stupid dreams afterwards.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

_[‘GODDAMMIT FUCKING HELL KISS MY ARSE!’ If Sherlock had been able to wake himself up with a groan, he would have certainly done it now. Of course… He is dreaming again. And once again he is a silly princess in a stupid dress, playing with… a skull?!]_

“Oh, my skull!” screeches the pretty male princess with the distinctive Sherlockian features, who has been bouncing his bony companion from one hand to the other, only to see it drop into the well.

"Why are you crying, king's daughter? Thy tears would melt a heart of stone."

Sherlock winces at the voice, which sounds vaguely familiar to him. A frog… There is a frog poking its head out of the water.

_[But of course it isn't just any frog with any head. It is, despite the green skin, a human’s head, and Sherlock is not a bit surprised to recognise it… A tiny Mycroftian face with a cow-slick of black hair falling into his green (!) face – but when he just spoke, a long frog tongue was shooting out of the little human mouth. Such a looong tongue. What could a tongue like that do to him…? Sherlock moans in horror at the prospect of having a frog tongue up his rear end and loving it and rolls over the mattress, still sound asleep, despite the struggle to wake up before this insanity can continue.]_

Sherlock/the princess tells the frog that his toy skull has fallen into the water and that it would be missed sorely.

"Never mind, do not weep," answers the froggish Mycroft and he casually catches a fly out of the air and swallows it while still croaking. "I can help you; but what will you give me if I fetch up your skull again?"

Sherlock offers the green saviour his clothes and jewellery and even the crown on his thick black curls.

But the frog doesn’t desire any of these treats it has no use for. “You can keep your possessions. But if you love me and let me be your companion and let me eat from your plate and sleep in your bed, then I will dive into the depths of the water and give you back your precious skull.”

_[‘It’s a skull, get another one, you stupid bitch!’ whines Sherlock in his sleep, seeing the sticky sheets coming back to him. But of course his dream version agrees – just to take the skull and run off, leaving the complaining frog behind, having forgotten about it in less than a second._

_And Sherlock thinks that this basically is what he has always done with his brother – let him fix his problems and then turn his back on him. It is an obvious lesson to learn from this dream and he would be glad if it was the only one. In fact, he would immediately call Mycroft in the morning if the dream just ended here._

_But naturally, it does not.]_

The next day, Sherlock the princess is sitting at the table with the King and the court in an opulent dining room and everything is made of pure gold.

_[Only that the King is nobody else than Mrs Hudson, who did not play a part in his previous dream. She is wearing a large crown on her short, grey hair and is dressed in red velvet and looks as if she absolutely belongs there.]_

Sherlock looks up from his meal when he hears something squishy on the stairs outside and then someone crying, _“Youngest princess, let me in!”_ And he runs to the door to see who the visitor could be.

_[‘Don’t open the bloody door, you awful girl!’]_

But the Sherlock-princess opens up and there sits the Mycroft-frog – wearing a fancy three-piece-suit and holding a tiny umbrella in a tiny, slimy hand. Sherlock shuts the door at once and walks back to the table, feeling pretty uneasy.

Mrs Hudson sees at once that something is wrong. “My dear, what are you afraid of? Is there a murderer standing at the door? Or Moriarty’s ghost? Or your bitch of an incarcerated sister? Molly Hooper without clothes?”

_[Sherlock huffs out a hysterical laugh at that.]_

“No,” mumbles Sherlock. “It’s a horrid frog.”

“And what does it want?”

And Sherlock explains the mishap with the skull and how the frog demanded to live in the palace with him in exchange for giving it back to him. And right in this moment, the frog knocks again and cries from outside,

_"Youngest King's daughter,  
Open to me!  
By the well water  
What promised you me?  
Youngest King's daughter  
Now open to me!"_

"Your mother has a lot to answer for,” Mrs Hudson chides. “What you promised, you must keep. Go and let him in.”

“ _You_ let him in,” says Sherlock, stubbornly, and winces when the King hisses, “I’m not your housekeeper. Go and do it!”

So the frog ends up on the table, telling him to push his golden plate closer so they can share Sherlock's meal, every tiny bite the human takes keeps stuck in his throat while the frog eats heartily and dives his long tongue into the wine glass now and then. And when it is sated, it tells Sherlock to bring him to his bedroom so they can sleep together.

Of course Sherlock refuses but the Mrs-Hudson-King grows angry. “What you have promised in your time of need, you must perform now.”

So Sherlock, horrified, takes the frog by the collar of its suit jacket with two fingers and carries it to his bedroom and puts it into the corner furthest away from his bed. When he has lain down to sleep, the frog comes creeping to the bed and tells him to pick it up and let it sleep with him, otherwise it will tell the King.

And with sudden fury, Sherlock picks up the slimy creature and throws it against the wall, crying, “Now will you be quiet, you horrid frog!”

_[And Sherlock remembers a moment when he twisted his brother’s arm and pushed him against the wall because he had refused to take care of Magnussen, and shame makes his cheeks blush even in his sleep. And then he sees in his mind's eye Mycroft, drugged out at their parents’ kitchen table, and he watches himself pulling the laptop away from under his head to betray him and the country for a woman who had not long ago almost killed him, and a tear of remorse may or may not appear in his left eye.]_

As he falls, the frog turns into a man. A tall, slim, handsome man, even the umbrella has grown with him and hangs elegantly from his arm when he rises to his feet. Sherlock the princess gets lost in his beautiful blue eyes and Mycroft tells him how he had been bound by a witch’s evil spell and that only Sherlock could have released him as they belong together. And the King is more than happy to consent to them getting married now that Mycroft is not an amphibian anymore, only that she says ‘reptile’ instead, the silly woman.

And when they step outside, there comes a carriage drawn by eight gorgeous weight horses, and behind the fancy carriage stands the faithful Henry, the servant of the young prince, looking decidedly female despite the uniform he wears and the short dark hair.

_[Anthea, of course. This is the fairy tale of women appearing in men’s roles it seems. But Sherlock doesn’t know of anyone else his brother is relying on so it does make sense. He has never thought about what kind of relationship they have – his brother and his attractive PA. But he is sure that they are not romantically or sexually involved, and why does he bother about that at all?!]_

Faithful Henry has suffered such pain due to his master being turned into a frog that he has been wearing three iron bands over his heart to keep it from breaking with trouble and anxiety. When faithful Henry has helped them both in, the carriage starts to take the prince and his princess (or rather prince) to his kingdom, and he gets up behind, feeling happy to the bone.

And when they have gone a small part of the way, Sherlock hears a crashing sound at the back of the carriage, as if something had broken, and he looks at Prince Mycroft with worry. And Mycroft, looking horrified, turns around and cries:

"Henry, the wheel must be breaking!"

But Anthea/Henry assures him that the wheel is not breaking in fact. “It’s just the band round my heart that I used to lessen its ache, my prince.”

Again, and yet once again there is the same sound, and the prince thinks it must be the wheel breaking, but it is the breaking of the other bands from faithful Henry's heart, because it feels so relieved and happy now.

_[That’s it, right?! Mycroft is released and they will live happily ever after (and that this already seems to be the normal process for their alter egos is frightening enough). No need for an explicit porn scene to prove it, right?!_

_But it seems that, in fact, there_ is _a need for it…_

_And honestly – Sherlock is, despite feeling horrified that this happens again, grateful that it happens now that Mycroft has his human form…]_

The bedroom of the prince is huge and richly decorated. In the middle stands a four-poster bed the size of a small country.

Sherlock is not shy at all. He attacks his new husband within seconds; both are naked already when they fall onto the bed and Sherlock has the large cock of the former frog in his mouth before Mycroft can even stuff a pillow behind his neck.

 _[Sherlock covers his eyes with his hand in his sleep, as if that could ban the_ [arousing] _disturbing pictures. He can even taste his brother’s member on his tongue even though he has never sucked a cock in his life.]_

The King’s youngest sucks and slurps and moans around the thick appendage in enthusiasm, causing spit to fly everywhere. Prince Mycroft makes cute little whimpering noises as he is swallowed down by his virgin princess and his balls are played with – all the juggling with the skull has paid out.

He enjoys Sherlock’s ministrations for minutes, his cock growing in the tight throat even more. And then he manhandles the love of his life onto the mattress and puts his tongue to good use.

_[‘HOLY SHIT THAT TONGUE!’ Mycroft is a human now but he still has that fucking long tongue he had shown as a frog. Sherlock can almost feel it in his throat when Mycroft delves even deeper into his arse, producing slurping noises like a pig eating from its trough. A man who so elegantly sips his tea! Sherlock is panting through his dream, watching and feeling his brother eat his arse as if it was ambrosia, and this is so wrong and so fantastic and so horrible and God, how has this even happened and will it now happen again and again until Rosie has grown out of her fairy-tale-phase?]_

And then Sherlock finds himself on his knees and Mycroft fucks him so hard that the bed threatens to break, producing the same noises as the carriage had done.

And when Sherlock looks up, he sees the faithful servant standing in the door, watching them with an expression of reverence and excitement, a hand rubbing away through clothing, and there begin to happen three orgasms at once.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Sherlock woke up with his hand working his throbbing cock over almost hard enough to rip it off, and he came with a cry, managing to shoot a part of his load into his wide-open mouth and he choked on his semen and coughed, panting hard, feeling embarrassed to the core.

And to his horror, he heard steps outside his room and then there was a sharp knock at his bedroom door _. “Sherlock? Are you alright?”_

“Yes, John,” he croaked, trying to sound as if he didn’t have his mouth full of his own seed and if the rest of his hefty eruption wasn’t drying on his neck, chest, stomach and everywhere around him. “Had a nightmare.”

“ _Oh, sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about it?”_

“No,” Sherlock answered full of conviction. This was a conversation he really did not want to have.

Eventually, he convinced John that he was truly okay and could be left alone.

With his eyes wide open, he slumped back into the sticky pillows. This couldn’t go on. These dreams were telling him something. More than one thing, certainly. First of all, he was missing his brother, and he was feeling bad about so many nasty things he had done to him and never apologised for. So much was clear. But that he had now dreamt again of having awesome sex with him had to mean something else – namely that he wanted to have awesome sex with Mycroft. Wherever this had come from – and possibly the distance of the past months had let Sherlock's subconscious realise these feelings – it would not go away.

Of course the million-pound-question was if Mycroft wanted to have sex with him, too. It seemed every bit as unlikely as Mycroft wanting to work in a kindergarten. But what if not? What if his brother secretly had the hots for him, too?

Only that Mycroft had been avoiding him for ages. For this reason? Or had he basically forgotten about him?

Sherlock could have texted him. Called him. Casually dropped by at Whitehall. But he could hardly bring up this topic out of the blue, could he? _‘Nice suit, brother. Have you lost weight? By the way I keep dreaming that we fuck. Do you want to?’_

No. He needed a strategy. First, he had to find out if he really wanted to do anything about this. Two times were no scientific pattern. Two murders didn’t make a serial killer. Two sex dreams didn’t mean he wanted to have sex – with Mycroft or anyone else – for real. So he would test the theory by reading a fairy tale to Rosie again the next day; she or John would hardly mind. If he had such a dream again afterwards – which would be the third time, a magic number – he would pursue getting closer to Mycroft. And even if he didn’t, he would have to apologise for all the shit he had done to his brother. He would do that after testing another theory – that Mycroft did, in fact, still care for him. And if everything worked out, he would have to find out if Mycroft did like him in the same unbrotherly way that he had obviously developed.. In the end, their brains were working in a very similar way. Was it that far-fetched to assume that their sex drives or even their hearts, because his dream versions certainly did love their princes, did the same?

He hadn’t the faintest idea if these plans would get him anywhere but into a lot of trouble or if he had gone insane for real but he recalled how boring his life had become lately. This puzzle was certainly spicing it up. He just had to be very careful that he didn’t _mess_ it up.

When he had dragged himself into the bathroom to clean himself up and then changed the sheets, he snuggled up against several pillows and he would have lied if he had denied imagining Mycroft holding him in his arms when he drifted back to sleep – which certainly hinted at the possibility that more than his groin was involved in this forbidden longing for his big brother.


	3. Rapunzel

_"Oh," answered he, "be merciful rather than just, I have only done it through necessity; for my wife saw your rampion out of the window, and became possessed with so great a longing that she would have died if she could not have had some to eat." Then the witch said,  
"If it is all as you say you may have as much rampion as you like, on one condition – the child that will come into the world must be given to me (…).”_

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Sherlock had been enjoying a remarkably pleasant afternoon. A case for the Met, solved in record time. A ‘7’, bordering on ‘8’. Waving the gratitude of Lestrade and his superintendent (not the one that John had knocked out before The Fall) away, he had left the Yard with long, elated steps. He had been in a hurry to get home and start making progress in The Case. John, who had needed to see his dentist so he had not been able to accompany him to the crime scene, would be there now and also in the evening, no work for him today. But still Sherlock wanted, no, _burned_ to read a fairy tale to Rosie, who had spent the afternoon with Molly and would be back now, too.

When they had arrived in Scotland Yard to talk some more about the murderer Sherlock had found for him and share a well-deserved cup of tea, Lestrade had casually mentioned that he had seen Mycroft the previous evening. Coming out of the Royal Albert Hall. With a tall, handsome man at his side.

Sherlock’s heart had literally stopped at this devastating piece of news. But then Lestrade had, innocently and not thinking anything by it, added that Mycroft and his companion had not seemed to be overly happy. There had been pecks on the cheeks, and the younger man had given Mycroft a look full of sadness and longing before they had parted ways.

Trying not to sound too suspicious, Sherlock had asked Greg why he had even bothered observing them, wondering if the inspector had a personal interest in his brother (and if he had to plan the man’s death; the other Scotland Yarders would never figure out that it had been murder, let alone a murder committed by Sherlock). But Greg had said that he had just never seen Mycroft with somebody who was obviously not work related or Sherlock, and had been curious which kind of man had drawn his attention.

‘ _At first I thought it was you though,’_ he had said with a laugh.

Sherlock had been intrigued but tried not to show it. _‘Why, did my brother lecture him about his behaviour?’_

Greg had raised his eyebrows. _‘I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Not much, as far as I can say. No, he just resembled you a bit, as much as I could judge that from afar. Must have been the curls and the cheekbones.’_

At this point, it had been hard for Sherlock to not fist-pump the air. Not that he had been very happy about the image of Mycroft dating anyone, but if his brother chose someone who looked like him, it was at least suspicious! Still he had to admit that it could be a coincidence so he would have to follow his plan, starting with step one as soon as he was at home. Not that he needed that much more proof that he was interested in Mycroft for real – his jealousy at the sheer mentioning of someone seeing a play with his brother spoke volumes anyway (and it also spoke volumes about Lestrade’s intelligence that he hadn’t seemed to wonder why Mycroft was dating a man who looked like his own baby brother). Still. He needed to read another fairy tale and find out if he would dream about _[having sex with]_ Mycroft again.

And so he hung up his coat and stalked into the living room, where John was working on his laptop (or rather chatting with some female, judging by his insipid grin, Sherlock immediately corrected himself) and Rosie was playing with two of her dolls on the carpet, imitating the voices of Mrs Hudson and Molly quite impressively.

“Ah, hello to you two,” Sherlock greeted his flatmates.

“Hi Sherlock.” John looked up briefly and gave him a friendly smile.

Better mood today. Dentist hadn’t found anything that needed to be treated. As much as John was a doctor himself and a big (well, not really) bad (sometimes) ex-army captain, he feared dental work as much as the next guy. Sherlock involuntarily clenched his jaws at the thought of someone doing nasty things to his teeth.

“Uncle Sherlock!” Rosie, dressed in pink from head to toe as usual, let her dolls drop in a quite flattering way, jumped up and ran over to him, and he picked her up and smiled when she gave him a rather wet smooch.

“Would you like me to read you a fairy tale?” Perhaps he should have waited until the evening. Who knew if the impact lasted long enough to cause him certain dreams if he read the story so early? Well, it was too late to take it back.

“Oh yes!” Rosie was beaming at him.

“Your daddy can go out a bit and get some fresh air.”

John stared at him as if he had grown a second head. Perhaps even a third. “You’re seriously _volunteering_ to read a _fairy tale_? And you give me some time off?”

“I _can_ be generous if I choose to. And I’m sure you’ll know how to pass the time.”

John blushed a bit and glowered at Sherlock when he grinned but then he grinned, too. “Yeah. Fine. Got me. That’s aces. Thanks.”

“No worries. I didn’t offer you one of my kidneys. I have nothing better to do this afternoon. Take your time.”

John looked insultingly suspicious for a moment but then he beamed at Sherlock in the same genuine way as Rosie had done, and Sherlock felt something like a gush of warmth in his heart. They had gone through so much trouble, and the years between his fake death and the Smith case that had ended almost fatally for him had not been easy in the least, but John was still a big part of his life and their friendship might have changed in many ways but was still strong and solid, despite John’s moods. One day John would find another love interest, a serious one, and he and Rosie would move out to start a new family with this so far faceless and nameless woman, but Sherlock hoped that he would never lose contact with his best friend and the girl that had grown so much on him.

And he also hoped that he wouldn’t be lonely then because he would be in a fantastic, ground-breaking, sex-filled relationship with his big brother. There was a long way to go to get there though – if it ever happened at all. And he couldn’t wait to make progress so he hurried into the bathroom to freshen up and then to his bedroom to change clothes so fast that he almost strangled himself with his shirt, and then he bade John goodbye and settled into his armchair with the book in his right hand and the little girl in his left arm, and proceeded to read the totally irrational and frankly ridiculous story of ‘Rapunzel’ to her, this time not fearing but hoping for a juicy dream to happen.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

 _[Blond totally doesn’t suit him, Sherlock thinks with a grimace as he watches himself as young Rapunzel, being locked into the black, fiendish-looking tower. The weird hair colour does nothing for his pale complexion, and more than once Rapunzel stumbles over her idiotically long, golden tresses on her long way up. And how can these steps along with the door suddenly disappear? Oh, well, because this is a_ dream _about a silly_ fairy tale _and it is a_ witch _who locks Rapunzel into the tower to keep her away from the world after she has taken her away from her parents for the crime of her father having stolen rampion out of her garden. A witch that, weirdly enough, looks like Eurus…]_

Sherlock/Rapunzel is pretty and kind-hearted. Knowing nobody but the witch, he grows up lonely and is modest and sweet, and his only friends are some birds that keep visiting him, and they sing lovely songs together.

_[In his sleep, Sherlock tries to cover his ears. The birds are a pleasure to listen to but his singing voice is nothing to be proud of…]_

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel!  
Let down your hair!"

the Eurus-witch screeches whenever she longs to talk to her prisoner, and the golden locks are being let down and she climbs up on them, groaning and cursing as if it hadn’t been her own insane idea to lock the child away like this, whatever she has wanted with it in the first place.

Years go by and Rapunzel grows into a young adult in the never-changing tower.

_[And Sherlock feels trapped in his sleep, knowing he would have gone mental if this had happened to him for real. Certainly it isn't a coincidence that he has made his sister into the witch. The sister who has been spending all her life in a small cell with no hope of ever getting out. Watching his alter ego bravely cope in his confinement without anything to do but to sing and comb his stupid hair, he understands a bit better what had driven Eurus to play her games with him and Mycroft and John. But he also sees how Eurus is not. His sister would have never made friends with birds or taken a spider onto her hand to kindly talk to it. She is evil and has always been evil. Rapunzel is not like her at all. She is Sherlock's good side. His innocent side. The side that Eurus had tried to destroy by killing his childhood friend. Or perhaps he is just slowly going mad, too…_

_And then he sees him – the prince that is about to try and save him. His heart starts to beat faster when he watches his handsome brother riding on a kind, brown horse. Is there any doubt left that he is in love with him? He could have pictured someone else as his saviour after all. John. Even Lestrade. A stranger. Angelo. But it has always been Mycroft and there is no use in denying that Sherlock has fallen for him irreversibly.]_

Prince Mycroft stops his horse when he hears the singing coming from this creepy black tower in the middle of the forest. Who is this lovely person this voice belongs to? He searches for a door but there is none.

_[‘Why does he not scream up to me?’ Sherlock sighs, watching the prince riding off, looking confused and disturbed and pretty lonely.]_

The handsome prince cannot forget the beautiful singing though, and so he keeps returning to the tower every day without getting any closer to finding a way in until he finally arrives there when the witch is just ordering Rapunzel to let the long hair down for her.

And the next day, the brave young prince returns at dawn and repeats the words he knows will give him access to the nasty tower and its lovely inhabitant.

_[‘Thank God Rapunzel is so stupid that she doesn’t even notice it’s not the witch’s voice’, thinks Sherlock, and he eagerly watches Mycroft climbing up the tower, his trousers clinging fetchingly to his pert little backside. Sherlock might or might not have experienced his cock filling out just a tiny bit when he read the lines of Rapunzel meeting the prince – anticipating what his subconscious would make of it in his sleep. Needless to say he immediately forced his erection away as a little child was sitting on his thigh… He wouldn’t even have wanted to imagine how John would have reacted if he had witnessed him getting a boner in this situation as he could have hardly told him that it was for Mycroft, not Rosie…]_

Sherlock/Rapunzel is terrified when the prince appears. Apart from the witch, the prisoner has not met a single other person for the past eighteen years so there are a lot of embarrassed gasps and blushing cheeks and coy looks.

“Don’t be afraid,” Mycroft hurries to say. “I fell in love with your singing and I want you to be my wife.”

_[Sherlock can’t help but roll his eyes at that logic. Marrying a total stranger just because they sing nicely? Which is not even true? But of course he is glad that his dream-Mycroft is so infatuated with dream-Sherlock. And he would be even gladder if the real Mycroft was feeling the same about him…]_

“But I’m a man,” Sherlock coyly tells him, blushing some more.

_[Sherlock chuckles in his sleep.]_

Mycroft is totally unoffended. “I don’t care. Be my prince then.”

“I want to,” Sherlock agrees with eyes like saucers, immediately having lost his heart to the beautiful young man.

“How do we get you out of here?” Mycroft, holding both of Sherlock's hands in his own now, muses.

“Come back every evening as the witch comes during the day. Bring me silk whenever you come so I can make a ladder, and when it’s finished, I will get down on it.”

_[Sherlock imagines how the real Mycroft would have handled this problem. Certainly he would have come with a helicopter or rather ordered one to pick them up right away. And Sherlock recalls the situation in which he killed Magnussen with his brother watching from the helicopter, certainly feeling horrified and helpless at what he had to watch. It made him angry enough to send Sherlock on the death mission he had previously told him to refuse. But does he really think Mycroft would have let him die on it? He wouldn’t have, of course not. He would have saved him. Like in the fairy tales… Sherlock sighs in his sleep at how romantic that is – and then blushes a bit in embarrassment.]_

“That’s what we will do,” nods the prince. “Can we… kiss now?”

A moment later he is lying on Sherlock's bed, his shirt in shreds, his trousers being ripped off his body along with his underpants and socks. Sherlock jumps him and impales himself onto the large cock the prince has to offer, the endless hair covering them both while they are chasing their orgasms in an instantly perfect rhythm.

_[Sherlock fists his throbbing cock in his sleep while yet another porn movie is happening in his mind’s eye. He can literally feel Mycroft's cock sliding in and halfway out of his arse, his prostate being stimulated at every deep thrust. In reality, it is his own finger which is penetrating his anus, eagerly poking at his pleasure spot. Panting and drooling in his sleep, he comes closer to his climax with every second – and then he comes, still sound asleep, while the dream is going on.]_

Sherlock and the Mycroft spend every evening together, making love and talking about their future, and whenever Sherlock is alone, he works on the silky ladder that is supposed to bring him out of his prison. Eurus has no idea about what is going on until he asks, “How is it that you climb up here so slowly, and the King's son is with me in a moment?"

_[Sherlock groans in agony at the stupidity of his alter ego. He would never do something that imbecilic in his life! And then he thinks of his plan to get Mary’s file from Magnussen or his idiotic deductions that had led to Mary’s death and he sniffles in his sleep.]_

The witch does not take it well. She screams and rages and slaps him in the face, and then she cuts off Sherlock's long hair and brings him away to a desert place, ignoring his pleading and unattractive sobbing. And when Mycroft shows up at the tower the next time and climbs up, he has to realise that the hair that was let down for him is attached to the window-hasp and not to his beloved’s head anymore. Instead a furious and very scary witch is waiting for him.

"Aha!” she cackles with glee. “You came for your darling, but the sweet bird sits no longer in the nest, and sings no more; the cat has got her, and will scratch out your eyes as well! Rapunzel is lost to you; you will see her no more."

Mycroft collapses with grief, and in his agony he jumps from the tower, directly into a bed of thorns that put out his eyes.

_[Sherlock cringes in his sleep, not just for the imaginary prince, who should have strangled the nasty witch instead of mutilating himself. How often has Mycroft been hurt because of him? And how much pain must he have endured in Sherrinford, feeling guilty for the things that Moriarty had done to Sherlock and then horrified when Sherlock threatened to shoot himself? And in the end Sherlock sent Lestrade to make sure he was doing okay. A great brother he has always been…]_

The blinded Mycroft wanders through the wood, living from roots and berries, and he keeps weeping for the loss of his beloved Rapunzel. And he walks and walks for years until he accidentally arrives at the place where Rapunzel is living now.

But not alone…

_[Sherlock almost chokes on his spit when he sees himself with two little children even though he should have seen that happening as it was in the fairy tale of course. How the fuck could this have happened though?! The kids look like Rosie (but with dark hair) and Victor Trevor, he realises. How has he given birth to them? And why does he wonder about that? This is not real. But it is lovely to see Rapunzel (or is it Sherpunzel? he thinks and cackles maniacally) heal Mycroft's eyes with her tears. It’s nonsense and totally unscientific but still kind of sweet, especially when they look each other deep in the eyes…]_

And so the prince kisses his husband and greets his beautiful children and then takes his three loved ones to his castle where they live together happily.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Sherlock woke up after a night filled with pleasant dreams. Not just his X-rated version of the fairy tale – afterwards, he had dreamt that he and Mycroft were walking side by side at a gorgeous beach, watching the sunset and kissing every few seconds.

He knew damn well that the reality would look completely different. Even if Mycroft loved him the same way and even if his decent, law-respecting brother would agree on starting a forbidden relationship with him – they could never be open about this. The sword of Damocles would always be hanging over them. If anyone found out and didn't react well to their incestuous relationship, they would lose everything or had to take this person out before they could talk.

How would they react? Mrs Hudson, harbouring no sympathy whatsoever for Mycroft.

John – who had probably even less, despite Mycroft offering his life so John could live in Sherrinford.

Molly – God, he didn't even want to imagine.

Lestrade – the cop…

Their parents… Gasp!

While Sherlock was pulling at his rather disgustingly caked shorts – his semen had had a lot of time to dry on his body and merge with his clothing – he felt his mood fall. Did he really want to subject his Queen-loving brother to risking his career and his freedom for him? Perhaps forcing them to elope? Hadn’t he done enough to Mycroft already?

But this worst-case scenario was just _one_ side of it, wasn’t it? They could be so happy. Living their love in the dark, never risking to get exposed. Being nice with each other, oh so nice.

Of course he was well aware that he was being horribly presumptuous. He couldn’t even know for sure that Mycroft even wanted him. Or wanted to do anything sexually with him; perhaps his brother would be fine with holding hands and exchanging the odd peck on the cheek after a dignified conversation over dinner or attending a concert together.

But what Sherlock did know was that he wanted it all. He wanted awfully sentimental love confessions. He wanted messy kisses and feverish fumbling. He wanted sweaty, nasty, dirty, passionate sex. He wanted to stick his tongue into places that had never seen the sun. He wanted to make Mycroft grunt and pant and make all nasty noises under said sun. He wanted his brother’s come smeared all over his face and sticking in his hair. He wanted Mycroft sucking his cock while poking four fingers into his arse. He wanted everything.

And if there was even the slightest chance that Mycroft wanted the same and was willing to actually do it with him, he would take it. So he would follow his plan and see what was going to happen. And he would be damned if his cock wasn’t swelling again at the sheer image of being allowed to put it to use with the only man who had ever managed to make him want that – without even knowing it.

But he would know soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a blond Benedict Cumberbatch :) With a bearded and spectacularly looking Mark Gatiss. Swoon!
> 
> https://66.media.tumblr.com/cdaa542928663eb4d0c69e423f33f214/tumblr_mqfg8xn5kz1sqsgjoo1_500.png


	4. Hansel And Gretel

_"Nibble, nibble, like a mouse,  
Who is nibbling at my house?"_

_And the children answered,  
"Never mind, It is the wind."_

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“I can’t believe that someone so smart can be that stupid!” John flared, not for the first time, throwing his hands into the air in a dramatic gesture that would have been worthy of Sherlock.

“I was in my thoughts,” mumbled Sherlock, grimacing as he involuntarily moved his previously dislocated shoulder. He recalled hospital beds being more comfortable.

“Yes. In your _thoughts_ ,” parroted the furious doctor. “Of course. The great Sherlock Holmes is so deep in his bloody _mind palace_ that he doesn’t look where he’s walking. Run over by a cyclist, I ask you!”

Sherlock wisely didn't mention that the same had happened to John a few years ago. A very touchy subject, never to be mentioned. Not the ‘accident’ that had taken him out so Sherlock could lie down and play dead but the whole ‘playing dead’ thing in the first place… Of course that part of the plan from back then had been the inspiration for today’s ‘mishap’ but as usual, John saw but did not observe. “You’re overreacting,” he mumbled, knowing he had to hit back or John would assume he had also hurt his head.

“Overreacting, yes, that’s what you always say when I am the one who is acting reasonably,” hissed John, clearly hinting at their first meeting after Sherlock's return from his mission, indirectly bringing up the subject they usually avoided like the plague.

Sherlock did not plan to go down that road… “I mean, hitting the poor man. It wasn’t his fault.”

“He was riding way too fast and then he was ready to just ride on when he was on his feet again without bothering about you! Arsehole!”

Sherlock was touched. Of course this protective reaction had been kind of nice. It had also been nice to not be the recipient of John’s violent outburst. Even though John was clearly upset about his alleged carelessness, he had immediately taken Sherlock's side and had avenged him against the poor middle-aged man who had been on his way to work, oblivious of the schemes of a certain consulting detective and probably not understanding what had just happened. He had scratched up his leg quite badly, too. They could be happy if he didn’t sue John...

“You need to go now, John,” he told his friend. “Your shift?”

“I won’t leave you alone!” rumbled John. “You are injured!”

“I’ve had it worse.” Indeed Sherlock had. The shoulder was reduced and the two almost cracked ribs and the bruises all over his upper body and the lacerated knees were nothing compared to having been shot, for example. Fine, he might also have a slight concussion but the headache was a piece of cake.

“Still.”

God, John was so stubborn sometimes! “I won’t be alone for long.” If Sherlock had estimated correctly, he should have a visitor in about five minutes. But of course he couldn’t be sure about it. Perhaps Mycroft didn't have him under observation anymore. Perhaps he really didn't care about him any longer. The thought hurt. A lot.

And then he heard steps and the clacking of an umbrella and he needed all his willpower to not grin like a fool but instead grimace in agony. “There he comes…”

“Who? Oh. Good morning, Mycroft. Long time no see. Really a long time.” John seemed to realise this only now.

Mycroft gave him a brief glance and greeted him before his gorgeous blue eyes were directed at Sherlock.

Sherlock could see worry, care, affection – everything he had longed for. Almost everything… But Mycroft would hardly show that so openly. Only his anxiety about Sherlock's accident made him show any feelings at all now.

He took in the sight of his brother like a man who was about to die of starvation and saw himself confronted with a chocolate cake. How handsome Mycroft was! Older than in his dreams, yes, naturally, but still looking absolutely gorgeous! Not a hair out of place – even though there were not many hairs left that could have stepped out of line. But even the almost-baldness just looked distinguished on him. The suit was new and perfectly ironed, bespoke to his tall, slim body. Those endless legs… Sherlock realised that he had not paid nearly enough attention to them in his dreams. And that mouth-watering package, very visible beneath the tight trousers. It was very hard not to leer too openly. Instead he tried to look pained (which he was) and like a suffering maiden in need of a _[prince]_ big brother to hold their hand.

But of course what Mycroft, every inch the Iceman and exasperated older brother and behaving as if they had just met a day ago, said was, “Sherlock, Sherlock. Why do these things keep happening to you?”

“Can’t you show a bit of compassion?” John immediately turned against him before Sherlock even had time to be disappointed (but really – what had he expected? That Mycroft would rip him into his arms as if he was a fucking prince and Sherlock his damned princess? That would have been rather painful anyway...)

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon? Are you the same man who hit and kicked my brother to the hospital so he almost died at the hands of a psychopath?”

Both Sherlock and John gasped. Sherlock had not even known that Mycroft was aware of this little detail. He should have known though. Mycroft would have only needed to read the police reports as John had told Lestrade about it. Or the medical reports, actually, as Smith had ‘only’ tried to suffocate him, not kicked or hit him beforehand. Mycroft had never mentioned it. But obviously, he had neither forgotten nor forgiven over the years.

“That… I did apologise for that,” John mumbled, suddenly sounding rather meek.

He had. More than once. And Sherlock had never resented him for it in the first place. It had not been very nice. But justified.

Mycroft seemed to disagree on that though. He shot a glance at John that would have made a lesser man fall to his knees, begging for mercy, before he turned back to Sherlock, who tried not to drool at this display of protectiveness. It seemed to be _the_ thing today – protecting Sherlock! From evil cyclists and formerly violent best friends! Forgotten was Mycroft's cool approach and the fact that he would have probably never shown up to meet Sherlock if he hadn’t deliberately gotten injured. Mycroft _cared_.

He absently registered that John left the room to finally go to work. He was too busy not to stare too openly and greedily at his brother and drool as if he was his last - and very tasty - meal.

What now? He had not planned for what should happen after finally meeting Mycroft again as that depended on the other man’s reaction a whole lot. But his brother was just staring at him as if he wanted to detect Sherlock's injuries. Would he leave when he was confident that they were not that bad and not worthy of any further attention? Sherlock could not let that happen! He had not suffered all these stupid scratches and wounds to see Mycroft leave again within the next minute!

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

It had been so hard not to storm into this hospital room, ripping the door open to examine his little brother with his own eyes. Of course Mycroft had seen the medical reports on his way to St. Bart’s (the staff knew that documenting the injuries and treatment of this particular patient took precedence and no dangling was allowed, no matter how busy they were) but he had to check on him, had to make sure that they had not overlooked anything.

Presumptuous and stupid, that’s what that was. Not only was Sherlock in the hands of very capable doctors, he had also brought one himself. And that stupid pipsqueak had the cheek to ask him for being more compassionate! Mycroft would have loved to grab the little man and throw him out of the room. He would never understand why Sherlock still shared his flat and basically his life with him, being best of friends again with a man who had treated him so badly more than once.

But he had to admit that he would have lied if he had denied liking what the doctor had done with the man who had overrun his brother. Someone very tall and broad in the shoulders (sent by Mycroft) had spoken with the careless cyclist afterwards and assured him that pressing charges against John or possibly even Sherlock, who had stepped onto the street without looking and made him crash onto the asphalt, was not in his best interest. The man had obviously understood and mumbled something about _‘nothing happened’_ and _‘no big deal’_ even though one of his legs had been bandaged from his ankle to his thigh.

In any way Sherlock looked pale and as if he was in pain but he was hardly on the verge of dying and Mycroft knew he had to leave him alone again. But when he was about to excuse himself with a few well-chosen words about looking where he was going and generally taking better care of himself from now on, Sherlock suddenly blurted, “Where have you been, Mycroft? All this time?”

“I’m sorry?” Mycroft caught himself gaping at his brother, who looked like a young, slightly suffering Lord Byron, a cheeky lock falling into his pale face.

Sherlock tried to sit up and grimaced as this was obviously very painful. Mycroft made a step towards the bed to help but stilled when he saw Sherlock glowering at him. “Yes. You. Why have you disappeared? I never asked you to.”

Well, technically, he hadn’t. Not lately at least. But… “I don't understand. You never…”

“Clearly you don’t. We’ve gone through this Sherrinford shit together, haven’t we?”

“Um. This Sherrinford… What?”

“You came with me to the prison afterwards. And that was it. Never showing up for any stupid cases. No admonishing me to behave!” Sherlock was sulking now, his full lips pressed together.

The lips that had fuelled so many wrong fantasies in Mycroft… “I… I’m sorry?” he brought out, feeling as if he had landed in a strange parallel universe. Sherlock had… _missed_ him?

“As you should be,” retorted Sherlock. “We will meet for dinner as soon as I’m able to walk without wincing again.”

“Um. Okay?”

“Good! I will have to stay here until tomorrow. It’s boring. Come back later. And bring something nice.”

“Um. Fine. What?”

“Biscuits!” Sherlock rolled his eyes but Mycroft, who was finally waking up from his shocked stupor at this highly unexpected development, couldn’t quite avoid the impression that Sherlock was feeling not nearly as exasperated as he was pretending to do. In fact, he almost seemed to be… triumphant? About what? Forcing him to buy him a decidedly cheap present? Or spending time with him? That was what Sherlock wanted? But he had never contacted him! Phones worked both ways. And he could have dropped by.

The deduction hit him with force. Sherlock had deliberately caused this accident. To see if Mycroft… still cared about him enough to hurry to his sickbed? That was crazy! Mycroft felt dizzy and shaken and he was more than a bit relieved when at this moment a competent-looking female doctor burst into the room to look after his brother so he could excuse himself to go back to work.

What was going on here? It was impossible that Sherlock had found out about his feelings for him. They had not met for ages! And even if he had, why should he…

Mycroft stopped in the middle of the hospital hallway, causing a nurse to run into him but he hardly noticed her apologies or the rude push. No. That couldn’t be. To seriously consider that possibility was a sign for going mental. Sherlock didn’t _love_ him. Whatever his reasons were for getting in contact in this crazy, self-harming way instead of just picking up the phone, it couldn’t be anything like this.

But when he had slipped onto the back seat of the black limousine after stumbling out of the building on wobbly legs, he caught himself wishing that it was, in fact, the case.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“You really don't have to do that now!”

“I know. Go and have a coffee in the cafeteria. Or perhaps you are dying to hear the story, too?”

John grimaced. “I never liked this fairy tale. It’s too cruel. Rosie, are you sure you want to hear it?”

Rosie, her small hands holding the rather crumpled fairy-tale-book, sighed. “Of couuurse, Daddy! It’s one of my favourite tales! I love it!” She was sitting on Sherlock's bed, the tiny thing.

“Yeah, course you do. What’s not to love about a child-eating witch who gets burned in her own oven?”

Sherlock suppressed a chuckle. “Don’t give the plot away, John!” he admonished his friend with a twinkle. He was feeling a lot better. Well, at least the headache had mostly fucked off. He could have gone home. But he wanted to stay as Mycroft would know he did. Not that he wanted his brother’s pity but… Okay, maybe he did.

John snorted. “I bet she could tell you the story word for word without even looking into the book.”

“I could,” nodded the little girl. “But Sherlock reads it soooo good! He makes aaaall the voices!”

John smiled and reached out to tousle her fine, blonde hair. “Okay then. I’ll go downstairs for a coffee. Certainly need one. I’ll bring you a hot chocolate, Rosie. You want anything, Sherlock?”

“No, thank you. Mrs Hudson visited me and you know she would never come empty-handed. And Mycroft was here and brought me all kinds of treats.”

It had been like a miracle. A rather awkward miracle. Sherlock had been so happy that his brother had really returned to keep him company for a while, and he had been very pleased about the ginger nuts, the _latte macchiato_ , the scones and the fruits Mycroft had bought for him. They had shared the treats and Mycroft had told him some news about their parents and that Eurus was, still without saying a word, helping the government again with figuring out threats, and Sherlock had wanted to say so much and had settled for talking about some cases Mycroft probably knew more about than him, and then Mycroft's phone had signalised a call that had made him return to his office, and he had seemed a bit relieved to have an excuse to leave.

And all this time Sherlock had seen the clear signs that Mycroft had figured out what Sherlock was feeling for him and even that Sherlock had provoked this accident. He should have known that Mycroft was too smart to not deduce all this. But Mycroft had come back nonetheless! And Sherlock had seen in his brother's stunned and stunning eyes that Mycroft shared his feelings wholeheartedly but was shit scared of them and would probably need lots of persuasion to even consider acting on these desires.

But now his brother had time to think about it and hopefully, he would be amenable to being convinced to jump into the dangerous waters of a forbidden love as they both wanted it after all, and if _they_ couldn’t deceive everybody, then nobody could. And until Mycroft had made up his mind, Sherlock would pass the time with some more lovely dreams. But he had chosen ‘Hansel and Gretel’ because there would be no sex. Probably… He was not really in the condition for rolling about in his bed, chasing his orgasm, and he was in a hospital after all… But hopefully, he would still dream of Mycroft. Until he got the real thing, dreams had to be sufficient. He wondered, not for the first time, how having sex with Mycroft would be. Probably he would faint when they just kissed for the first time… He really couldn’t wait…

“Uncle Sherlock!”

“Okay, okay. Give me the book.”

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

_[It is a strange sight: Sherlock, as expected, is dreaming himself into the role of Gretel. A skinny little thing with rather greasy hair and a dirty face, the eyes bright but decidedly hopeless. And as he has hoped for, Mycroft is his brother Hansel. The age gap is much smaller than in real life; probably his Gretel is only about two years younger than Mycroft's Hansel. Twelve and fourteen, Sherlock estimates._

_Hansel looks like a young Mycroft of course. But he isn’t as chubby as his brother was at this age. He is lean and handsome and his face is serious. But he has every reason to be…]_

The two children have not been able to sleep as they are so hungry, and have heard what their stepmother said to their father – namely that he should abandon them in the woods as the family doesn’t have enough to eat. "It is all over with us,” sobs Gretel/Sherlock.

Hansel/Mycroft has his sinewy arm wrapped around Sherlock's shoulders, and Sherlock feels comforted and snuggles against him when his beloved brother promises to save them. Mycroft never lies! And he always has the best ideas.

And really – when their father and the horrible woman he has taken as his second wife lead them into the woods, Mycroft drops the white flints he fetched the previous night when he’d secretly left the house after their conversation. And when the two children, who have cuddled up next to the fire they have made and fallen asleep, wake up late at night and realise that nobody will come to bring them home indeed, they follow the trace of the flints that are shining in the moonlight like silver.

They do find their way home, and get chided by their stepmother for having been away for so long, and she can hardly hide her exasperation about seeing them again, but they can see that their father is happy to have them back.

_[Angelo is their father, which makes Sherlock smile in his sleep. The good old Angelo, who still believes that he and John are a couple – sometimes Sherlock thinks that Angelo believes that he has given birth to Rosie... And the stepmother is nobody else than grumpy Sally Donovan. She has never said sorry for firmly believing that Sherlock was a fraud. He doesn’t resent her for that; in the end it had been the plan to make people believe that he was a criminal. And she does accept his presence at ‘her’ crime scenes now. But perhaps she would really like to see him abandoned in the woods..._

_And isn’t this so true – Mycroft finding a way? Mycroft has always known everything best. And when Sherlock was a child, he was always there for him. When did that end? Yeah. When Mycroft had to leave their home to make his way. Hardly coming home anymore. And Sherlock recalls how he refused to come to the phone when his brother called. Too hurt he was for being, well, abandoned… Only that Mycroft never did that. His only crime was to grow up. Their estrangement was not his brother’s fault. Sherlock knows that he has to make up for so many failures it’s not funny… It is indeed a miracle that Mycroft seems to love him back.]_

For a while, everything is back to normal in their modest home, but naturally, it doesn’t last long. Very soon there is nothing to eat in the house, and Sally tells Angelo again to let the children get lost in the woods. And this time she locks the door so there is no way for Mycroft to get the flints that could ease their way back. In his desperation, which he tries hard not to show towards Sherlock, he leaves crumbs of his small piece of bread behind when they are walking to their destination.

Again they fall asleep at the place deep in the forest where their parents have left them. And when they wake up, they proceed to follow the trace of crumbs, but they have gone, picked up by the birds and the mice in the wood.

Their hands entwined, they stumble along, trying to find their way, but they have gotten lost. They have nothing to eat, and even though Mycroft kisses and pets him, soothing him with words of hope he doesn’t believe in himself, Sherlock feels more desperate by the minute.

_[And Sherlock thinks of a time when he has felt like that for real. There have been a lot of hard times in his life. When he was young, he took drugs to escape them. When he was away while dismantling Moriarty’s network, he calmed himself down with thinking of how grateful John would be that he had burdened himself with this mission to save him, Lestrade and Mrs Hudson. And when he came back, John reacted badly to it and Sherlock's life was in shards, and he felt more lost than ever. And after Mary’s death… God… Sherlock really knows how it feels to be alone and lost. But how stupid he was during all this time – someone has always been there to watch over him. He was just too blind to see it. Mycroft would have always guided him out of his misery if he had only given him the chance. It’s a conclusion he will not forget when he wakes up.]_

They walk and walk and drink from the river and eat some berries, but they are both close to passing out. Not even smart Mycroft has an idea anymore. About noon they see a pretty snow-white bird sitting on a bough. It is singing so sweetly that they stop to listen. And when the bird eventually spreads its wings and flies before them, they follow after it because by now they have lost hope and are ready to grab every straw. And a while later, they reach a little house and the bird perches on the roof, and when they come closer, they see to their surprise that the house is built of cake and ginger nuts with a chimney of pure chocolate. The windows are made of transparent sugar, and the stomachs of the poor children growl at the sight.

"We will have some of this," says Mycroft, "and make a fine meal. I will eat a piece of the roof and you can have some of the sugar-window." And so they eat, both getting a sugar high very quickly.

Then they hear a thin voice call out from inside,

"Nibble, nibble, like a mouse,  
Who is nibbling at my house?"

And the children answer,

“Never mind. It is the wind.”

_[And Sherlock stirs in his sleep, feeling strangely anxious. This will have a good ending, won’t it? So far, his dreams have more or less stuck to the original fairy tales, well, apart from the juicy sex. But they all ended well. But now they are facing a dangerous counterpart and both of them are children.]_

Unimpressed, Dream-Mycroft and -Sherlock go on eating. Mycroft takes down a big piece of the roof and Sherlock pulls out a large round window.

Then the door opens, and an aged woman comes out, leaning upon a crutch.

_[It’s Smallwood. No. It’s Eurus. No, Moriarty. Smith? Damn. Magnussen! It’s all of them and none of them, the face of the woman changing within seconds. When she smiles, it even looks friendly but Sherlock feels a rush of fear at her sight. He just can’t watch his brother die. And what do people say about dying in one’s sleep…? Stupid. Nobody is going to die and even if they both do – it’s just a bloody dream! But he still wishes with all his heart that he could tell his alter ego and his beloved brother to flee. Alas, he can’t…]_

Mycroft and Sherlock are shocked frozen and don’t fight the woman when she takes their hands – they have dropped the sweets they were holding – after saying, “Ah, my dear children, how have you come here? You must come indoors and stay with me, you will be no trouble."

And they are so tired and starved and when they see that a meal of milk and pancakes is laid out for them, they eat heartily and then sink onto two clean, soft beds that are kindly offered to them and fall asleep at once.

The awakening in the morning is cruel. Mycroft gets ripped out of his bed and put into a little stable, and Sherlock cries bitter tears and tries to fight the woman that is in fact a ghastly witch, but the Smallwood/Eurus/Moriarty/Smith/Magnussen creature just laughs at him and tells him to fetch water and cook something for his brother so he would fatten up so she can eat him.

Sherlock cries and begs to no avail, and so he cooks fat meals for his incarcerated brother while all _he_ gets is a bit of dry bread.

“Don’t despair, brother mine,” whispers Mycroft when Sherlock brings him the food the witch doesn’t allow him to share with his little brother. “We are smart. We’ll find a way out.”

And Sherlock reaches through the bars and touches his cheek, and he cries bitter tears while doing so. Because as much as he believes in his brother, they are facing a seriously scary fiend.

_[All of his enemies combined in one person, Sherlock thinks. Each and every one of them wanted him to be either dead or beaten for good. In the end, he (and in Eurus’ case Mycroft) survived it all. Together they can beat them again. They’ll have to!]_

Each morning the witch visits the little stable and cries, "Stretch out your finger, that I may tell if you will soon be fat enough." Mycroft shows his cleverness once more as he only holds out a little bone for her to feel, and the witch, who can’t see well, believes that it is his finger and wonders why he doesn’t gain any weight.

Sherlock has to do all the housework and cooking and he hates it and curses and cries while doing it, but whenever he can, he sneaks to Mycroft's prison to talk to his brother, and they share all their little secrets with each other and become closer than they have ever been.

_[And Sherlock hopes that it will be like this. No, not with Mycroft being fed fat to be eaten but with trusting each other unconditionally and telling each other everything. He craves this kind of bond he has never had with anyone before. Not since he has grown up, because in his sleep he remembers the time when it had been like that with him and Mycroft. They have lost it but now they have the chance to find it back and he can’t wait for it.]_

When four weeks have passed, the witch loses her already thinning patience. “Fat or lean, tomorrow he will be killed and eaten.” Sherlock begs and pleads for his beloved brother’s life but of course his efforts fall on deaf ears. And in all this time, he and Mycroft have not succeeded in working out a plan to escape.

In the morning, the witch says, “"First we will do the baking. I have heated the oven already, and kneaded the dough." She pushes poor Sherlock towards the oven, out of which the flames are already shining. "Creep in and see if it is properly hot, so that the bread may be baked."

She plans to shut the door behind him and bake him so she can eat him, too. But Sherlock deduces her plan. Playing dumb, he asks, "I don't know how to do it: how shall I get in?"

"Stupid goose! The opening is big enough, do you see? I could get in myself!" And she stoops down and puts her head in the oven's mouth. With a triumphant scream, Sherlock pushes her inside the hot oven and shuts the iron door upon her and puts up the bar. As deaf to the witch’s howling as she had been to his pleading, he runs away to Mycroft to set him free.

They fall into each other’s arms and kiss. And then they kiss some more _[and the kisses give Sherlock a fuzzy feeling]_. Eventually they let each other go to search the house, and they find jewels in every corner and fill their pockets with them before leaving the burning witch and her house behind.

Hand in hand, they walk through the wood again until they come to a river. "We can never get across this," says Mycroft, "I see no stepping-stones and no bridge.”

"And there is no boat either," sniffles Sherlock. “But here comes a white duck; if I ask it, it will help us over."

_[Sherlock grins in his sleep when he recognises the – more or less – human face of the duck. It’s Greg Lestrade…A beak suits him!]_

"Duck, duck, here we stand,  
Mycroft and Sherlock, on the land,  
Stepping-stones and bridge we lack,  
Carry us over on your nice white back."

And of course the Greg-duck complies, and takes Sherlock over to the other shore, and Mycroft after it, and they thank him and bid him goodbye, and the duck says, “If you just remember my name, I’ll be happy.”

_[Sherlock grins some more. But he has not forgotten Greg’s name since Sherrinford and he certainly never will again.]_

They walk on and finally the way grows more and more familiar, and soon they are standing in front of their father’s house.

Angelo storms out and embraces his children. “Thank God you are back! Your stepmother has eloped with some guy who does something with the dead, and I tried to find you but had no luck. Now come in and have a meal with me; I will light a candle.”

Mycroft and Sherlock share a happy look before they empty their pockets onto the table, and diamonds and gold and sapphires are sparkling in the dim light of their home. They will never lack money again, and the small family begins their life together all over again, and Mycroft and Sherlock will always sleep in the same bed.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Sherlock kept smiling until he woke up in the morning, and when he opened his eyes, he realised that his wounds had become much better, as if his brother’s love had healed them in his sleep. Like real magic...

And he made a decision – as Mycroft would hardly ever make the first step and was certainly terrified of the sheer prospect of acting on feelings he had probably harboured – and fought – for ages, Sherlock would have to make sure to lead the way and convince him that being together was not only a really good idea but an inevitability. Like his Gretel had saved her Hansel from the witch, Sherlock would save Mycroft from a life full of loneliness – or worse, a life spent with someone unworthy. A life without Sherlock at his side, bottom line.

They belonged together. It was as easy as that.


	5. Little Red Riding Hood

“ _Here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother. She is sick and weak, and they will do her well. Mind your manners and give her my greetings. Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path, or you might fall down and break the glass, and then there will be nothing for your sick grandmother."_

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

It was impossible to concentrate on his job. Mycroft had read the same paragraph four times now, and he still couldn’t have said anything about the content. Remarkable for the man with the computer brain, who only had to read words once to recall them forever.

This man had taken some time off, obviously. Getting replaced with someone completely out of his depth.

What was he supposed to do now? Sherlock… wanted him. Desired him… And Lord, how much Mycroft wanted him, too! But where had Sherlock's crush on him suddenly come from? And how could Mycroft be sure that he wouldn’t change his mind again within the blink of an eye? Sherlock was obsessed with experiments. What if an affair with his own brother was just one more? And what would become of them afterwards if that happened? And Sherlock might be forty years old but Mycroft still felt as if he was about to abuse his baby brother. Fine, Sherlock had never done anything in his life that he hadn't wanted to do. But… Mycroft was the older one. He had to be the responsible one. This was unspeakable. Couldn’t happen. No way.

He almost shot up from his chair when the phone in his shirt pocket vibrated with a text message. He fumbled it out with shivering fingers, simply knowing it could only be from Sherlock. And it was.

_Good afternoon, brother dear. How are you? SH_

There was no way to not answer at once.

_I’m fine. Much more important: how are you? MH_

Mycroft knew that Sherlock was at home again. He had seen the video feed. Sherlock had walked very straight for a man who had some nearly broken ribs. He had not seemed to be in pain at all anymore, which he clearly had been when Mycroft had seen him after his accident.

_Good. I will be there at seven tomorrow. Something simple for dinner will be fine. SH_

Mycroft's throat was suddenly completely dry.

_You mean… You want to come to my place? MH_

_Do keep up. Of course. Or would you prefer dinner in Baker Street with John, Rosie and Mrs Hudson? I don't want to go to a restaurant. They might not be amused, either. SH_

Amused about what? But was that really a question? Certainly it was not a question he would ask his brother. Or to which Mycroft wanted to hear the answer.

_We can have dinner together. With pleasure. But that’s it. We will just talk. MH_

_Well, I’m still a bit unwell. I will hardly jump you at the dinner table. We will have to leave that for next week. Every romantic relationship should start with talking, I assume. I have no experience but it sounds reasonable to me. See you tomorrow then. SH_

No, no! Reasonable?! Nothing about this was reasonable! Sherlock couldn’t mean that -… But he did as Mycroft very well knew. His brother was deadly serious about this. He wanted… And then he would want… Oh dear God.

Mycroft all but shrieked when seemingly out of nowhere Anthea appeared next to his desk.

“Oh, sorry, sir, I did knock. I thought you might like tea before your meeting.”

His pulse slowly decreased. “Tea. Yes. Fine. Thank you. What meeting?”

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“Oh, you’re going out tonight?”

Sherlock fumbled with his shirt collar. “I am indeed, Mrs Hudson.”

John was visiting his sister. With Rosie, of course. He had asked Sherlock if that was okay with him, given his state, but Sherlock had encouraged him to go, telling him that he was fine again. And he was. Blue and green from head to toe and of course his ribs were hurting, but that would not keep him from spending the evening with his brother. Striking while the iron was hot and so on. Well, lukewarm, actually… If not cold… But if he gave Mycroft even more time to think, his brother would possibly move to another country to avoid having to deal with Sherlock's eagerness to turn the brothers Holmes into the lovers Holmes. And not because Mycroft didn’t want that but just because he was convinced that it shouldn’t happen nonetheless. Beneath all his _‘caring is not an advantage’_ and _‘don’t get involved’_ mantras, Mycroft was, in fact, a very sensitive man, who was frightened of sentiment, especially his own. But Sherlock wouldn’t have that. The dreams had shown him the way. The way to love and happiness!

“Are you meeting someone nice?” Mrs Hudson asked with sparkling eyes.

“Um. My brother.” Sherlock had found out the hard way that it was not easy to lie to her. Of course, once he and Mycroft were together, he would have to deceive her but she could very well know that they were not ignoring each other anymore.

“Oh, how nice!”

“Is it?” John had told him that she had called his brother a ‘reptile’ when Mycroft had last been in Baker Street. Three bloody years ago… How could he have let that happen? How could he have allowed Mycroft to disappear from his life like that?

“Yes,” nodded Mrs Hudson. “I’m sure he missed you terribly. You did not meet him for ages, did you?”

“That’s true,” admitted Sherlock, shaking his head about himself.

“That’s not good. Your brother might not be the most… easy to be around of all people but it’s not good to let things slide with people we are close to.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Mrs Hudson loved to meddle in everybody’s life after all. Why hadn’t she told him to call Mycroft?

“Ah, sometimes people must come to such conclusions themselves. And sometimes… they need a little help.” Mrs Hudson gave him a slight smile and pulled a small paper bag out of a pocket in her layers of clothing. “Here. I’m sure your brother might like a bit of tasty tea, too.”

Sherlock took the bag – and then he recalled the herbal mixture she had brewed for him after he had read ‘Snow-white’ to Rosie. He gasped. “Did _you_ give me those dreams? With this tea?! Are you a witch?” The next moment, he closed his mouth audibly. Had he gone completely mental now?! Fine, he had dreams about witches and spells and whatever but in his real life, he was still a scientist who knew that such things didn’t exist!

And then he saw Mrs Hudson smile. “Not a witch, Sherlock, even though there are white witches in this world, too. I’m just a well-meaning old woman who knows a thing or two about herbs and what they can do. And about people…”

Sherlock felt like fainting. “You wanted me to dream about…” One thing was sure – he wouldn’t have to lie to Mrs Hudson if he and Mycroft got together… No, not _if_! When!

“Oh, no.” To his surprise she shook her head. “That’s not how it works. This tea just helps you realise your heart’s desire. It doesn’t plant anything in your head. It just brings out what is already there, and in your heart and your soul. And it’s your decision if you act on it or not.”

Sherlock nodded slowly. “But you wouldn’t mind if I did.”

“Of course not.” The old lady beamed at him. “What your heart really wants is good. No matter what anyone else thinks about it. And I always only wanted to see you happy.”

Sherlock felt a lump in his throat at her kindness. “Thank you. That is…” Then he furrowed his brow. “But why now? And why were you not surprised at all that it’s my brother?” And then he understood. “You had spoken with someone. Someone close to my brother.” Someone who might be staring at her phone all day but still didn’t miss the important clues...

She smiled. “Someone who had seen that he is very sad. And who might have caught him staring at pictures of you in a way that suggests something beyond brotherly care.”

Sherlock shook his head in awe. Witches! If Mrs Hudson wanted to call herself that or not - he and Mycroft were surrounded by witches!

Then he pointed at her. “Nobody else may know!” He didn’t even want to imagine what Mycroft would think about the conspiracy of his PA and Sherlock's landlady but anyone else was completely out of the question.

That brought him an embarrassed look. “Of course not. You don’t think I’m so silly, do you?”

Sherlock stepped closer to her and put an arm carefully around a fragile shoulder. “No way. You’re smarter than anyone called ‘Holmes’.”

She giggled. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. But sometimes women see things that men don’t. It is nature’s way to ensure our survival, if you want a scientific explanation.”

Sherlock grinned. “I’m beginning to wonder if hocus-pocus is my new science. Unbelievable…”

“Believe an old woman. And a young woman who doesn’t like to see her boss suffer – we know what’s best for you.”

“Yes. I do believe you. But Mycroft… He is rather… prissy about the whole incest matter…”

“Well, then you will have to be convincing. And perhaps the tea will bring him some conclusions, too.”

Sherlock would have to get him to read a fairy tale then. And he knew just the one! “You think Rosie left her fairy tale book?” He could try to get him to read it online, of course, but somehow he felt that an actual book would make a bigger impression.

“Oh, I do have one I can lend you. An old one.”

“With evil powers?” Sherlock joked, but it was not quite a joke.

The tiny woman in the old-fashioned dress smiled. “Not evil at all. But powerful… Perhaps. But you wouldn’t need that. Our fantasy is powerful enough to make us see our way.”

“You are full of wisdom, Mrs Hudson.” He gently squeezed her. “Not just my housekeeper at all.” He kissed her on the cheek, and she giggled happily, and when he finally left the house with the book in his coat pocket and the tea and a piece of paper hidden in his shirt pockets, he felt hopeful and happy. Mycroft wouldn’t get away. He couldn’t do anything against Sherlock's love and the power of two wise women.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Mycroft assumed that he had been walking about ten kilometres in his house this evening, and he had not used his treadmill… He had simply been pacing around after arranging a light dinner for them, aware that eating was not Sherlock's priority. But he had still prepared some tasty treats for them.

He wondered if he would be able to eat anything though, considering how his stomach was turning and twisting in anxiety. Sherlock had always been a man with a very strong will. He would not take ‘no’ for an answer when it came to a… relationship of a highly inappropriate kind.

Of course Mycroft was well aware that the incest laws were meant to protect minors and people who suffered from abuse by a person who had power over them due to being related to them. And of course it was meant to prevent sick offspring. None of these conditions were relevant for them but the law still applied to them as well. And of course there was his fear of losing Sherlock completely if they started this and it didn’t work out. There were so many reasons to deny Sherlock any kind of sexual contact.

And of course there were so many reasons to _not_ deny it… A lesser man would have given in immediately and thrown himself at the feet of the most wonderful, fascinating, desirable, gorgeous man on earth when Sherlock stormed into his house five minutes before seven. He didn’t resemble the suffering man Mycroft had seen in the hospital only two days ago. His eyes were sparkling and directed at him with a no-nonsense expression.

“Mycroft. You look amazing.”

“I'm sorry?” Of course Mycroft had made an effort. New suit, new tie, clean shaven and thoroughly showered. But he had hardly cultivated the look of a scarecrow otherwise and Sherlock had never said anything about his appearance. Anything positive, that is…

Sherlock shrugged off his coat and let it drop to his feet. “You look great. Let's get over with dinner so we can get to the interesting part of the evening. Oh. And I brought tea. Make some for us, will you?”

Mycroft's head was spinning. Sherlock was not only straightforward. He was a force of nature! “Um…”

“Living room?” Sherlock pointed down the hallway after putting a small paper bag into Mycroft's hand.

“Um. Yes.” Mycroft felt a bit weak in the knees.

“Good. Hurry up.” Sherlock stalked away, leaving an overwhelmed Mycroft behind.

The cold-blooded string-puller, who was feared in the halls of power, was feeling thoroughly out of his depth. He bent down to pick up Sherlock's coat in order to neatly hang it up, and he could feel something hard in the pocket and took a look. A fairy-tale-book? Probably for John Watson's child but why was Sherlock carrying it around with him? Mycroft shook his head about himself. He really had more important matters to worry about… Feeling rather shaky, he walked towards his kitchen to fetch their healthy dinner and prepare the tea, and he couldn’t have been any more nervous if he had been about to face a hungry tiger.

*****

Mycroft had taken a few sips from the weirdly smelling but not badly tasting tea and bitten into the first avocado sandwich when Sherlock asked, “You aren’t still seeing this man, are you?”

He almost choked on the bread. How could Sherlock know about his dates with Tom?! Had his brother been spying on _him_ now?! But then he remembered his last meeting with the man who had been so fond of him. It had been in public, like all the others actually. Perhaps Sherlock had seen them together by accident? Or one of his friends had and had told him. Anyways… “No,” he said when he was able to talk again. “I’m not.” He and Tom had come to the conclusion that it was better if they didn’t see each other at all anymore. It would have been too painful for Tom as it would never go anywhere. “And… we never…” He broke off, blushing, but he knew the message had come across.

Sherlock nodded, looking satisfied. “Good. He's not good enough for you.” He grimaced. “I know our relationship has not been exactly… conflict free thus far. Here.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.

Mycroft took it automatically. “What is that?” he asked, sounding rather dumb to his own ears, while unfolding the paper that would have told him what this was about anyway.

“A list. You said there should always be a list.”

Mycroft grew cold. He had glanced at the many lines written in Sherlock's sloppy handwriting. Were these all the drugs Sherlock had taken recently? But he was under surveillance, and he had never gone anywhere to get illegal substances nor had anyone visited him who could have brought him any. This Wiggins type had disappeared from Sherlock's life completely.

But then he saw what this list really was about and gaped at Sherlock.

His brother nodded grimly. “These are all the things I have to apologise for. Perhaps there are more. If you can think of anything else, add it to the list. I want to say sorry for every single thing I’ve said and done to hurt you.”

Mycroft was speechless. He looked at the words and deciphered _‘diet jokes’_ and _‘arm-twisting’_ as well as _‘drugging you’_. It made his throat go dry. But he felt even more touched when he spotted _‘ignoring you’_ and _‘being a total brat in general’_.

Sherlock was watching him with serious eyes. “I know I can’t take any of it back. I would if I could but… You can't kill an idea and you can’t unsay words you’ve said. Most of the stuff on here I didn’t even mean at the time. But… I was absolutely ghastly to you and I can only say that I’m sorry and ask for a chance to make it better. Please give me this chance, Mycroft.”

And Mycroft knew that his little brother was not only talking about a better brotherly relationship. And he could feel his resistance crumble. Sherlock was deadly serious about this. This wasn't an experiment or a whim. “Why?” he finally brought out. “Why now?”

“Um. Fairy tales.”

“Sorry?” Mycroft remembered the book but he didn’t get it.

Sherlock shrugged. “I will explain it to you later. Can we… No. Let's eat first. Tell me about your day. That's what couples do, don’t they?”

Mycroft nodded slowly, his brain trying to wrap itself around the word ‘couple’. “I believe so, yes.”

And so they had dinner together, both being careful with their words and feeling very nervous.

When they were finished, Sherlock said, “That was good. Thank you for preparing it.”

Mycroft had stopped wondering about his brother's behaviour. “You are welcome.” In fact, he was surprised and glad that Sherlock had eaten with a good appetite.

“And…” Sherlock broke off, biting his bottom lip.

“Yes?” Mycroft gave him an encouraging look.

“Do you… forgive me?”

Mycroft's heart melted. “Oh, Sherlock. Of course. I would have never asked for this apology as our estrangement was mostly my fault.”

Sherlock shook his head vehemently. “No, it really wasn’t. Can we… sit on your couch?”

Mycroft managed a nod. He had an idea what Sherlock was planning. But he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse it. Neither did he feel prone to bringing up all the arguments why this was a really bad idea. Looking into Sherlock's beautiful eyes with this amazing expression of reverence and affection, glancing at these lips that looked so soft and kissable, feeling Sherlock's nervousness and wish to be close to him made it very hard to remember why this was wrong. When they walked over to his comfortable black couch, he caught himself thinking that he would soon have to start preparing a way out in case it blew up. Like organising false papers and buying a domicile in a country far, far away…

When they sat down next to each other, his heart was beating in an impossibly fast rhythm, and then Sherlock's arm was around his neck and he was pulled towards his brother, and then they kissed, and it was as if stars were exploding in his head (or was it his heart?) and he went all pliant in Sherlock's arms, all his senses filled with Sherlock's taste and scent and the way his grip felt around him.

But then an unwelcome picture popped up in his mind – the little boy Sherlock, around the same age as Rosamund Watson was now, looking up to him with the same affection and reverence that he saw in Sherlock's eyes now the moment before they widened in confusion at him pulling back. What kind of a brother was he? To want Sherlock like this, to desire him… He had suppressed and fought these feelings for so long and he had done that for a reason. A wave of guilt washed over him and he shook his head, unable to say anything.

Sherlock sighed and he looked almost desperate. “No, Mycroft. Forget it. Don't think that. I want it, and you want it, and we are both adults.”

“I know, but what if…”

“Please. Don't say anything more now. Sleep over it. Just let me stay for a little while longer, and read a fairy tale for me.”

“A… Oh. Okay.” Did Sherlock want to remind him even more of them being brothers? But in fact, he had never read fairy tales for him. Little Sherlock had only wanted to hear bloodthirsty stories about pirates and dragons. And since then, Mycroft had never read a story for anyone. It wasn’t what adults did for adults, was it? But it was such an innocent plea and he didn’t see a reason to refuse doing it.

Feeling troubled and guilty – for both having kissed Sherlock in a way no brother should kiss the other one and for hurting Sherlock by rejecting him – he sat back against the backrest of the couch. Sherlock was back in a minute, bringing the book. And then he handed it to Mycroft, slipped off his shoes and lay down flat on his back, his head resting on Mycroft's thigh.

“Page thirty-one,” he whispered, and Mycroft's heart clenched.

He felt confused and horrible, his heart burning to give in and kiss Sherlock some more and even guide him to his bedroom but his mind telling him that this would be the road to doom for his little brother.

With a shaky voice, he started to read, barely registering the words, but soon his voice fell into a steady rhythm. Still, he was hyper aware of the weight of Sherlock's head on his thigh while he was reading and Sherlock was listening silently and with his eyes closed.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

_[Mycroft groans in his sleep. This can’t be happening! He never dreams of anything else than… data. In his sleep, his mind processes everything he had been reading during the day. He groans again. Well, it is certainly doing exactly that now. Has Sherlock planned this? Of course. Why else would his brother ask him to read a bloody fairy tale for him? And that weird tea… Has he put anything into it? Or… There is the third groan when his not quite sleeping mind registers how Sherlock has obviously come to love him. Mrs Hudson… He has never trusted this old woman!_

_But of course Mycroft had already loved his brother for decades until tonight so he can hardly blame these feelings on tea and a children’s story. But he knows he can thank them for the dream. But… It is a cute dream. Cute?! Yes._

_He can see Sherlock. With a red cap made of velvet. But Sherlock is not a little girl. Nor is he a little boy. He is in his correct age, looking fetching in tight red trousers that are stressing his long, muscular legs, not to mention his impossibly plush behind._

_Who is Mycroft? Not-So-Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t have an older brother; at least none was mentioned in the fairy tale. And… Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice him, and what else is new… But there is more to be seen than what he read in the story anyway and Mycroft catches himself eagerly watching like an invisible bystander, which is not so far from what he had been in Sherlock's life until a couple of days ago. From a bystander watching a video feed to one in a dream about a silly fairy tale...]_

Sherlock runs around like a happy child would do, talking to the birds on the branches and the flowers that are growing everywhere. Whenever someone comes by, they stop to talk to Sherlock and everybody loves him. There is John Watson, walking with the help of his cane, and Sherlock in the red hat cures him from his injury just by talking kindly to him. A chubby man with a heap of dark curls on his head, whining about being accused of the crime of stealing potatoes, and Sherlock comforts him and tells him that some foxes may know that he was elsewhere when the theft happened and that the village’s policeman, ‘Uncle Lestrade’, will listen to them.

Sherlock can understand the animal’s languages. And they love him, too. A weasel that looks like Irene Adler is particularly clingy. And a mouse with the tiny face of Molly Hooper is following him everywhere around the house.

The mother… is their real mother, only looking younger. And she sends Sherlock on his way through the forest to bring treats to his grandmother. She warns him to stay on the path and not drop anything and to simply behave.

_[Mycroft watches his brother nod seriously and promise Mummy to do as he’s been told. He feels an overwhelming tenderness for the beautiful young man that is his little brother. If anything ever happened to him… Not that this hadn’t happened many times before but somehow, Sherlock has survived all attacks, the drugs and his generally reckless lifestyle. It was among the things he apologised for – being too reckless and making Mycroft worry about him all the time. If Mycroft gives in – will he stop that? But he has already, hasn’t he? He has become calmer and quieter. Deliberately caused accidents aside, his maniacal side has vanished. In his middle-age now, he seems to have realised what really counts. And somehow, this seems to include being with him, Mycroft. Because nothing could have planted these feelings in him. They have grown, perhaps after the ordeal that was Sherrinford. How sad his eyes were when Mycroft broke the kiss and later, when he left, asking him again to consider a relationship between them… Mycroft doesn’t want to see his brother sad. He wants to see him smile like he does now, in Mycroft's dream, when he walks into the wood, a basket in his hand, to visit his imaginary grandmother.]_

The wolf shows up as soon as Sherlock is a hundred metres into the wood. It’s grey and huge and it has a human face. But not just one. It changes every two seconds. It is Jim Moriarty, grinning insanely and seductively at Sherlock. It is Charles Augustus Magnussen, sweating and dying to bring Sherlock down. It is Culverton Smith, whose paws itch to strangle the life out of the innocent creature in front of him. And even worse: it is Mary Watson, looking sweet and being rotten to the core. And then John Watson – a different version than who had his limp healed by Sherlock. It’s the man who is out of his mind with grief and wrath, dying to beat Sherlock down.

_[And Mycroft sees with horror how Sherlock smiles at the nasty fiend, bidding him a good day. Blind to the viciousness and the danger. And Mycroft can do nothing but watch. Just like he had in the real world. He had conspired with Sherlock to bring Moriarty and his network down, but then he had to see him leave for his mission, all alone. And from everything else, he had been excluded. Apart from Magnussen… Sherlock has apologised for the circumstances of bringing the man down but in fact, it had been Mycroft's fault that it had come to that. He should have listened to Sherlock when his brother had told him about the dangerousness of the man. But he had felt so superior and then it had ended disastrously. Of course he wouldn’t have let Sherlock die on his second mission even if there hadn’t been the Moriarty-video. He would have gotten him out. But would he have come in time to prevent Sherlock from being seriously injured or even killed over the course of his punishment? And when the wolf briefly turns into Eurus, he groans once more. Another one of his epic failures… He has always wanted Sherlock to be safe but he has fucked it up again and again. And still Sherlock loves him and wants to be with him. It’s a miracle and how can he turn down a miracle, no matter how risky it is in so many ways?_

_Meanwhile, the dream is going on.]_

Sherlock tells the wolf that he is about to visit his grandmother.

“And what are you carrying?" the wolf wants to know.

"Grandmother is sick and weak, and I am taking her some cake and wine. We baked yesterday, and they should give her strength." And he also tells the wolf where his granny is living. "Her house is a good quarter hour from here in the woods, under the three large oak trees. There's a hedge of hazel bushes there. You must know the place.”

The wolf regards him with a wolfish look. "Listen, haven't you seen the beautiful flowers that are blossoming in the woods? Why don't you go and take a look? And I don't believe you can hear how beautifully the birds are singing. You are walking along as though you were on your way to school in the village. It is very beautiful in the woods."

And Sherlock looks around and nods. “It is, dear wolf. I will take some flowers to my grandmother; she will be very pleased.” And he runs into the wood and greets a badger and a crow and plucks some flowers, asking each of them for permission.

While he is walking deeper into the woods, the wolf hurries to the grandmother’s house.

_[Mycroft has expected Mrs Hudson in the role of the grandmother, but to his surprise, it is their actual grandmother, whom Sherlock has never met as she died before he was born._

_He winces when she asks the wolf into her house when he pretends to be Sherlock. He recalls how sweet she was and how she was the only one who seemed to like him, the complicated little boy, apart from his parents, of course.]_

The wolf, blind to her friendliness and sweetness, eats her up in one piece, and then he puts on her clothes and sets her cap onto his head before he pulls the curtains shut and lies down in her bed, pulling the blanket up to his neck.

Sherlock arrives with an armful of flowers and his presents. He steps into the house, whose door is open, and he pulls back the curtains and looks at his grandmother.

"Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!" he states in wonder.

"All the better to hear you with,” mumbles the wolf, mimicking the old woman’s voice.

"Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have!" Sherlock walks around her as if he’s doing deductions.

"All the better to see you with."

"Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!"

"All the better to grab you with!" The wolf begins to move.

Sherlock’s lips are suddenly trembling. "Oh, grandmother, what a horribly big mouth you have!"

"All the better to eat you with!" And with that the wolf jumps out of the bed to eat Sherlock up.

And then Mycroft bursts into the room, wearing the clothes and the gun of a huntsman, and he holds the wolf, who now has the face of the blackmailer Magnussen, at gunpoint. “You leave him alone,” he shouts, and Sherlock hurries to him and clings to him.

“Oh, I… Just wanted to play a game,” the wolf plays coy.

“You killed this old lady!” thunders Mycroft and Sherlock squeaks.

“Just one moment,” the wolf says, grinning sheepishly, and then he starts to retch quite nastily, and suddenly the old woman pokes her head out of his mouth, and then she is sitting on the floor, wet and disgusting but alive.

“See. Nothing happened. No hard feelings, huh?” The wolf, now showing a striking resemblance to Moriarty, proceeds to leave but Mycroft pulls the trigger and shoots him right between the eyes. The wolf falls over like a stone – and vanishes.

“Nobody tries to hurt my little brother and eats grandmothers.” And then Mycroft drops his gun in surprise when Sherlock is clinging around his neck and is kissing him with vigour.

Mycroft looks at the grandmother but now she has indeed changed into Mrs Hudson, and she is retreating to the bathroom. Before she disappears to take a well-needed bath, she gives him a happy wave and points at the bed.

He blushes but he doesn’t fight Sherlock when he pulls him over to said bed, and his clothes vanish like the wolf just did. And Sherlock is standing before him in his naked glory, and Mycroft can’t do anything but take him into his arms. And Sherlock proceeds to explore him and it feels like the most natural thing in the world when his brother’s lips and hands are basically everywhere on and in his body.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Mycroft woke up with a raging hard-on, his hand at his crotch, touching himself through his underpants. The pictures were so vivid in his mind – Sherlock being all over him. Deep kisses, greedy groping… Would it be like this in reality?

Because Mycroft knew one thing for sure – if Sherlock still wanted him after having been refused so idiotically, he would not say ‘no’ again. If he was allowed to take care of his brother, to protect and to be at his side like he had secretly always wanted to be, he would be a fool to deny it to both of them. They would deal with the inevitable problems. And he would do anything he could to make Sherlock happy so he would always smile and not frown at him.


	6. Cinderella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's finish this story with the sappiest fairy tale of all. Thanks to everyone who gave kudos and especially to those who took the time to comment. It's what gets us poor little writers going.

_There was once a rich man whose wife lay sick, and when she felt her end drawing near she called to her only daughter to come near her bed, and said, "Dear child, be pious and good, and God will always take care of you, and I will look down upon you from heaven, and will be with you." And then she closed her eyes and expired. The maiden went every day to her mother's grave and wept, and was always pious and good. When the winter came the snow covered the grave with a white covering, and when the sun came in the early spring and melted it away, the man took to himself another wife._

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

Sherlock came home from his rather devastating date with Mycroft in a dark mood. Rosie was in bed already, Mrs Hudson had gone out with her newest crush, Mr Tsurikov from two streets away, and John had been reading in his armchair, looking at him curiously now.

“You alright?” he asked, sounding concerned.

Sherlock tried to look indifferent. “Sure.” He noticed how John was scrutinising him, looking for clues. For drugs… “I’m fine, John. Clean. You want me to pee into a cup so you can analyse it?” he asked, sharply.

John winced. “Sherlock… What… No. I’m just worried. You look as if -…”

“Forget it. I’m going to bed.”

“It’s only half past eight.”

Sherlock didn’t answer but stalked towards his bedroom, still in his coat. When he had closed the door behind him, he sighed deeply. Why was he even upset? Or surprised? Mycroft had, after that kiss – that lovely, wonderful kiss – reacted as it should have been expected – reasonably. Not wanting to risk anything. Not because of himself, Sherlock was sure. Mycroft had always worried mostly about him, much more than about himself or the sodding Queen. But perhaps his brother even thought that he was just out for an experiment. Nothing could have been more wrong. Sherlock craved him. Forever, not for a hurtful experiment and dropping him afterwards. He would never do that to his brother. But how should Mycroft know? Sherlock had always been awful to him. The long list of failures spoke loud and clear. He had been gulping and frowning when he had written it. It had taken some time...

There was still hope, Sherlock thought. Mycroft had read the fairy tale for him. Had drunk all of the tea. Perhaps he would have dreams…

Or perhaps he had become completely and utterly crazy… Mrs Hudson some sort of a witch? Stupid! And Anthea had just made a – not so – lucky guess.

He huffed and finally shrugged off his coat. It landed on the thin carpet with a thud, and something fell out of the right pocket. Mrs Hudson’s book. Sherlock sighed and picked it up. He would have died for a nice dream. But he could hardly wake up Rosie to read a tale for her, and John would probably not want to hear any… But then he wondered whether it would work if he just read it for himself? Not out loud, obviously. The walls were thin and John would probably kick down the door, thinking he had gone mental and was a danger to himself. No. He would just read silently and hope for a nice, romantic dream if he couldn’t have anything else.

Pathetic, that’s what he was…

But when he had stripped down and put on his pyjamas, he sneaked out of his room and into the bathroom to brush his teeth and freshen up, and then he returned to his room, undisturbed, and made himself comfortable on his bed, comforting himself with the most inane and stupidly sappy fairy tale of all, the one that had been the source for countless stupid movies about true love’s kiss and sickeningly happy and infatuated people, the people to which he would never belong if not a miracle happened – Cinderella.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

_[Sherlock, indeed dreaming once more, watches himself scrub the floors while his evil stepsisters are having a good time in the living room. Dear God, he thinks when they appear, laughing at him – the roles are cast with nobody else than Anderson and Mary’s old friend Ajay, both wearing dresses. If he hadn’t been so depressed even in his sleep, he would have possibly giggled himself awake.]_

Sherlock-Cinderella has no reason to laugh. He gets forced to do all the hard work in the house and everybody treats him with contempt. His father _[his real father, Sherlock sees with surprise]_ makes a long face but doesn’t come to his aid, too intimidated by his second wife – the pompous Lady Smallwood...

_[Their relationship with the parents, him and Mycroft's, has never been easy. Father is a very intelligent, patient and friendly man with normal interests and happiest when everybody is smiling and in a good mood, and desperate when someone is suffering or behaving weirdly in his eyes – the perfect condition for dealing with three more than complicated children... And while their mother is a genius in her own right, she has always been so much more compatible with the common people. She has never understood their struggles with fitting in and has never shown that much patience for them, and Sherlock's drug use had been particularly hard to get for her. And even though he has, apart from some deliberate fall-backs, gotten out of his phase for good, he knows she will never really trust him. Why she has once called him the grown-up is beyond him – but she obviously just did it to punish Mycroft for lying about Eurus. He doesn’t doubt that their parents love all their peculiar children, but they are not close to any of them.]_

Without any help to be expected from his only blood relative, Sherlock has accepted his fate and wears his rags and wooden shoes with dignity. Even if he sometimes feels like throwing the peas that are strewn into the ash for him to pick out again at his nasty stepsiblings, he never shows it, knowing it would have dire consequences for him. At night, he has no bed to lie on but sleeps on the hearth among the cinders. So they mock him by calling him ‘Cinderella’.

One day, the father goes away on business, and he asks his two stepdaughters what he should bring back for them.

"Fine clothes!" says Anderson, rubbing his hands.

"Pearls and jewels!" demands Ajay, his eyes sparkling greedily.

"But what will you have, Cinderella?" Father asks his dirty child.

"The first twig, father, that strikes against your hat on the way home; that is what I should like you to bring me."

And so Anderson and Ajay get their fancy dresses and jewels, and Sherlock gets a hazel-twig. He takes it to the graveyard where his mother is buried and plants it there, crying so hard that the tears water it. It flourishes and soon becomes a healthy tree.

Sherlock visits his tree three times a day, and cries and prays, and each time a white bird rises up from the tree, and if he utters any wish the bird brings him whatever he has wished for.

_[Sherlock thinks he knows what he would have been wishing for… But even if he could have, he wouldn’t have used any magic on his brother. He doesn’t want anything from Mycroft that is not given freely. All he wants is to convince Mycroft that he is completely serious about this and that he won’t change his mind and that he will never hurt him again. Big words, he knows that, especially from him. But he longs for getting the chance to prove himself worthy of the love that his brother undoubtedly feels for him.]_

One day, the king ordains a festival that should last for three days, and all the beautiful young women of the country are asked to attend so the king’s handsome son might choose a bride from among them.

Sherlock's stepsisters are invited, too, and they tell Sherlock to comb their hair and prepare their dresses and he reluctantly bothers with Anderson’s thin, long tresses and helps Ajay store his muscular legs in a tight dress. When everything is finished, Sherlock begs his stepmother to let him go with them.

She looks at him with a gaze full of mockery. "What, you in all your dust and dirt, you want to go to the festival! You who have no dress and no shoes! You want to dance!"

But Sherlock keeps asking, and at last he gets told, "I have strewed a dish-full of lentils in the ashes, and if you can pick them all up again in two hours you may go with us."

Sherlock goes to the backdoor that leads into the garden, and calls out,

"O gentle doves,

O turtle-doves, and all the birds that be.

The lentils that in ashes lie come and pick up for me!

The good must be put in the dish, the bad you may eat if you wish."

Two white doves come to the kitchen-window, followed by some turtle-doves and at last a crowd of all the birds under heaven, chirping and fluttering, and they alight among the ashes; and they begin to pick and put all the good grains into the dish. Before an hour is over all is done, and they fly away. Sherlock hurries to his stepmother, but she denies him going with them again, ending up with putting two dishes full of lentils into the ashes that he is supposed to pick out before he is allowed to go to the festival.

Sherlock calls back the birds, and they help him along again.

_[Sherlock shakes his head about the stupid innocence of his alter ego. As if the old bitch would let him go to the party with them. He realises that in these fairy tales, the animals are, apart from the bad wolf, usually the nicer companions, and suddenly he craves for a pet. Rosie would love that. No wild birds, obviously. But a cute puppy from the shelter? He stores that thought away for later and watches his disappointed dream persona seeing his rotten family turn their backs to him as he has nothing to wear and cannot dance and would put them to shame.]_

And when there is no one left in the house, Sherlock clenches his jaw and storms out. He runs to his mother's grave, under the hazel bush, and cries,

"Little tree, little tree, shake over me,  
That silver and gold may come down and cover me."

The bird throws down a dress of gold and silver, and a pair of slippers embroidered with silk and silver. Sherlock/Cinderella puts on the dress and the shoes and goes to the festival. And Lady Smallwood and her daughters don’t recognise Sherlock and get all jealous and fume when the King's son comes to meet her as they all want him for themselves, even the old stepmother, and he is tall and gorgeous and has eyes like blue stars.

_[And Sherlock debauches in his brother’s beauty and watches his dream-self dance with him and wishes they would do this for real, and Mycroft would look at him like this, so full of reverence and infatuation.]_

They dance and dance, both lost in the beautiful music and each other, and whenever someone asks to be allowed to dance with Sherlock, the prince stubbornly shakes his head and doesn’t let go of him. Sherlock is hyper aware of the prince’s clean and sweet scent, the warmth and strength of the arms that are holding him, of his intelligence and charisma and sheer perfection.

_[And Sherlock would have retched at this description if it had not been so utterly true.]_

When the evening comes, Sherlock knows he has to go home, as much as he is already in love with the prince and the prince with him. He has to be there before his family comes back and of course he knows that it cannot be anyway – he is the man of the ashes and Mycroft is a prince. It is ridiculous to even imagine they could be together.

_[And Sherlock's heart clenches at this as it fits so well to his reality. They can’t be together as they are brothers and Mycroft may be dreaming about him also but will probably still not change his mind, and Sherlock starts weeping in his sleep.]_

Sherlock escapes the prince but Mycroft follows him and sees him jumping into the pigeon-house next to his home. Mycroft waits for the father and explains that he has to see the beauty again with whom he had been dancing all day. The father is confused as he is sure that the prince is not looking for his Cinderella, but they look into the pigeon-house to find nothing but pigeons. Prince Mycroft insists on looking in the main house too, but Sherlock has been quick – he has secretly sneaked out of the pigeon-house and into the kitchen and he is his dirty, ragged self again and Mycroft doesn’t recognise him.

_[Sherlock just sobs at that some more.]_

The next morning, his parents and stepsisters leave for the second day of the festival, and Sherlock, who has not even bothered to ask if he can come with them this time, goes to the hazel bush and says,

"Little tree, little tree, shake over me,  
That silver and gold may come down and cover me."

He ends up with an even more splendid dress than the previous day. When he appears among the guests, everybody gapes at him and is astonished by his beauty. The prince has been waiting for him, and he takes Sherlock’s hand to dance with him all the time. Sherlock revels in the prince’s charm and beauty but avoids answering any questions about his heritage and where he lives. And when the day is over, he escapes again and the prince ends up not recognising him once more as he had managed to follow Sherlock to a tree in the back garden of his father’s house just to not find him when the father came home and searched the tree, which Sherlock had secretly left by climbing down on the other side.

On the third day, Sherlock shows up in the castle, wearing the most gorgeous dress anyone has ever seen and shoes made of gold. He knows he should have just stayed away as this will be the last time he can be with Mycroft, but he just has to see him once more and dance with him and smell him and feel his strong arms around him, blanking out all the noise of the other guests and the bright lights and the gold and riches around him as nothing matters but the man he is dancing with.

_[Sherlock sniffles in his sleep, his eyes swimming in tears.]_

This time, when he tries to go home (even though he wants nothing more than to stay with his prince), he gets stuck on the steps as the prince has ordered them to be spread with pitch. One of Sherlock's golden shoes can’t be removed and so he leaves without it.

The next morning, the prince goes to the father and tells him that none should be his bride save the one whose foot the golden shoe should fit.

The two nasty stepsisters are eager to try on the shoe.

_[Sherlock groans at the stupidity of this. Mycroft can hardly confuse him with Anderson or Ajay! But perhaps people looked all alike when these stories were written…]_

Anderson can’t get his great toe into the shoe as it is too small. Lady Smallwood hands him a knife and says, "Cut the toe off, for when you are queen you will never have to go on foot." So the Anderson-sister cuts the toe off and gets his feet into the shoe. Smiling proudly and suppressing the pain, he walks down to the prince, who takes him on his horse as his bride and rides off.

_[Sherlock groans so loudly that Mrs Hudson in the downstairs flat hears him and sighs in sympathy. Sometimes very intelligent men are so stubborn and foolish, even the elder Mr Holmes…]_

They have to pass by the grave of Sherlock's mother, and there sit the two white pigeons on the hazel bush and coo,

"There they go, there they go!  
There is blood on her shoe;  
The shoe is too small,  
Not the right bride at all!"

Mycroft looks at Anderson’s shoe and sees the blood flowing. He immediately turns the horse round and brings him back home, demanding for the other one to try on the shoe. And Ajay goes into his room to do so, but his heel is too large. And Lady Smallwood hands him the knife, saying, "Cut a piece off your heel; when you are queen you will never have to go on foot." So a piece of the heel goes, and another bloody foot is thrust into the shoe. Concealing the pain, Ajay goes down to the prince, who takes his bride before him on his horse and rides off.

_[And Sherlock wants to scream in his sleep and tell Mycroft that he urgently needs glasses.]_

When they pass by the hazel bush the two pigeons sit there and coo again,

"There they go, there they go!  
There is blood on her shoe;  
The shoe is too small,  
Not the right bride at all!"

So the next one is brought back home. Mycroft is fuming. “This is not the right one. Don’t you have another one?” he asks the father, at the end of his tether.

"No," says the man, "only my dead wife left behind her a little stunted Cinderella; it is impossible that she can be the bride."

But Mycroft demands to meet Cinderella, and no matter how much the stepmother protests, Sherlock has to appear. He washes his face and hands and walks to the prince on wobbly legs. Mycroft smiles at him, holding out the golden shoe. Sherlock takes a deep breath and slips his foot into it, and it fits perfectly. And when he stands up, the prince looks in his face, and he finally recognises him. "This is the right bride!" he cries, and there are scandalised gasps all around them, but the prince puts Sherlock before him on his horse and rides off. And as they pass the hazel bush, the two white pigeons coo,

"There they go, there they go!  
No blood on her shoe;  
The shoe's not too small,  
The right bride is she after all."

And they fly on Sherlock's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and accompany them to the king’s castle.

_[And Sherlock cries some more when he sees his dream-self getting married to his prince, and his treacherous stepfamily getting blinded by the pigeons at the wedding. If only his real Mycroft could see how perfect they are for one another. How sorry Sherlock is for all he had done to him and how much he craves being with him for once and for all.]_

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

  
Sherlock woke up from the quiet knocking at his bedroom door.

“ _Sherlock?”_

He opened up his eyes and saw that it was very bright in the room. “John,” he croaked.

“ _Rosie and I are leaving. Are you okay?”_

“Fine,” Sherlock mumbled. He was feeling _splendid…_ He sniffled when he realised that he had not even had the pleasure of a sex dream as the wedding night had not been included this time. No sticky pants today. It seemed as if his heart had already accepted that he would never have his brother in this way so his mind had not made him any more false hope with a juicy, wet dream, and it felt like a loss to him.

“ _Is Sherlock ill?”_ he heard Rosie ask John.

“ _No, sweetie. He is just a bit… not good,”_ John answered her, and Sherlock smiled with a slight sigh.

“ _He needs a prince!”_ Rosie claimed and Sherlock closed his eyes in terror.

“ _Nah, the real world doesn’t work like that,”_ explained John. _“Bye, Sherlock!”_

“ _Bye, Uncle Sherlock!”_ screeched Rosie.

“Bye,” he managed to say back in a sufficiently light tone. “Have a good day.”

“ _You too. And if you need anything, give me a call.”_

Sherlock nodded as if John could see him, his mind already moving to the one he did need more than anything or anyone.

He heard the door close behind the doctor and his daughter, leaving for their job and day care respectively. Feeling as if he was eighty or as if his feet were attached to an iron ball, he scrambled out of the bed to take a shower.

He stood under the lukewarm spray for quite some time, washing himself lazily and feeling sore in his very heart. A sloppy shave and a quite thorough brush of his teeth later – and he had only brushed them for so long as his mind had shut off completely for a few minutes – he stumbled out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a bit of foam he had not managed to remove from his back, his skin still damp as he hadn’t bothered drying off properly.

And then he stopped dead when he realised that someone in an impeccable three-piece-suit but without any umbrellas was standing in the corridor, looking at him sheepishly, his eyes widening at the sight of a decidedly naked Sherlock.

“Oh, sorry, I…”

“My… Mycroft…” Sherlock stumbled over the name that was so familiar. He had come! He had waited for John to leave so they could talk. But what would they talk about? That they would have a bright, love-filled future together? Or that Mycroft couldn’t see a way for them to be anything else than brothers? It was impossible to tell from Mycroft's look. His brother had blushed and avoided looking at Sherlock's nether regions, but he _had_ looked for a brief moment, and as his mind worked like Sherlock’s, he would certainly remember the sight until his last day, if he didn't choose to delete the memory…

“Sherlock… Good morning. Sorry to just burst in here. I saw John leave and… I guess Mrs Hudson…”

“...is no danger for us,” Sherlock finished his sentence. “If you think… I mean… If you could possibly…” There he was – standing in the small space between his bedroom and the bathroom, stammering like a fool, his cheeks flushing as well.

“Oh Sherlock. Please forgive me.”

His mood sank and he bit his lip. “Nothing to forgive. I understand. It is too risky and you could lose everything and…”

“No!” Suddenly Mycroft was standing very close to him and he put his elegant hands on Sherlock's still slightly slippery shoulders. “I mean I’m sorry for having been such an idiot. I want you, Sherlock, and if you’ll have me…”

He didn’t get any further. Sherlock grabbed his coat collar and kissed him, kissed him like his princesses had kissed their princes, kissed him like there was no tomorrow. He was getting all weak in the knees as Mycroft wholeheartedly returned this second kiss they were sharing, making it the one that counted – true love’s kiss.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

“What’s so funny?” John asked his mischievously smiling daughter when they were finally sitting in the cab. They had been held up by one of the neighbours who had asked John if he and Sherlock might take his case – his sister was staying with him and heard suspicious noises in her room every night. John had promised to talk to Sherlock about it but been able to imagine the detective's eye-roll quite vividly.

“I was right,” she said, proudly. “The prince is there.”

John whirled around, and through the back window, he saw a tall man disappearing through the door of 221B, carrying a small bag and a briefcase. The cab was already too far away to be completely sure but whom did he want to fool – he knew that silhouette. He shook his head and tousled Rosie’s hair, about to tell her that this was Sherlock's _brother_ , not some fancy prince who would save him like princes seemed to have saved damsels in distress all the time in these old fairy tales. And then he remembered this silly accident Sherlock had just had and how he had been able to deduce the exact moment when Mycroft would appear – and he had not seemed to seriously dread it. His insistence on telling Rosie fairy tales all at once – after enduring a nightmare following the first time he had done it in a while and refusing it vehemently until he had suddenly changed his mind.

John felt as if he had gotten a blow to the head. Could that be? Could Mycroft really be the one Sherlock had fallen for? If so, he had obviously, for very understandable reasons, turned his advances down the previous day, making Sherlock feel sad and desperate. But now he had come, early in the morning, right after John had left.

He realised that Rosie was watching him. God… What if she told anyone? Had she recognised Mycroft? She didn’t even know him… How often had she seen him over the years?

But his daughter put her small forefinger on her sweet little mouth and raised her fine eyebrows in a way that reminded him of the Holmes brothers quite thoroughly. For a moment, an expression of wisdom, way beyond her years, appeared in her large blue eyes and it sent a shudder through his body.

He cleared his throat. “Right,” he said. “Prince.”

And Rosie giggled and then snuggled against him and was his little girl again, and he held his daughter in his arms and wondered what was happening in his flat right now, and blushed and decided he didn’t want to know any details. But the longer they were driving, the deeper his smile got. Holmeses. What else was there to say? If Sherlock had chosen to be the capricious princess that longed for a brotherly prince in a fancy suit, including sleeve garters, to save him from a life of loneliness and boredom, who was John to argue with him? It would have been bad for his health anyway… And really… All that mattered was that Sherlock was happy, and he had a strong feeling that right now, his best friend was indeed very happy.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

This was like nothing Sherlock had experienced in his dreams and would have expected to experience for real. It was so many times better that he had trouble preventing his enormous brain from short-circuiting from all the spectacular stimuli.

And currently, he was hardly even moving. When he had more or less taken Mycroft and dragged him into his bedroom, still kissing him furiously, and pushed him onto the bed, it had been over within ten seconds. Mycroft had put his large, warm hands onto his cold, naked arse, and Sherlock’s already fully erect penis had been rubbing against Mycroft's clothed groin frantically – and he had spilled his seed all over his brother’s trousers and collapsed, seeing stars and feeling a very silly grin pull at his lips.

Mycroft had chuckled and manoeuvred him to the middle of the bed before he could slide onto the floor, boneless as he had been, and had started undressing himself.

“ _Sorry about your suit,”_ Sherlock had mumbled, but Mycroft had waved that away.

“ _Nothing that can’t be washed out. And I’ve brought another one,”_ he had said with a twinkle while deftly unbuttoning his shirt, and Sherlock had gasped at this display of foresight.

And now Mycroft – gloriously naked, hairy, beautiful, big-dicked, warm Mycroft – was taking him apart. Molecule by molecule. There was not a single inch of Sherlock's face and upper body that his brother had left unkissed. He had been paying extra attention to Sherlock's nipples, which Sherlock had never really noticed before. Now he had realised that these plain little buds had a direct connection to his cock, which was already hard and throbbing again.

And then Mycroft’s soft lips closed around the wide, red crown and gently suckled at it, and Sherlock zoned out for a moment at how great that felt. Deft, careful fingers started playing with his testicles, gently weighing and fondling them, and Sherlock prayed to all possible gods and Moriarty in hell that he would not come again so quickly. He didn’t doubt that he would get it up and up, and up once more but Mycroft would have to go to work eventually and might not be up to a third round. And he had not come so far of course! In fact, Mycroft had been neglected completely and that was absolutely wrong!

His brother was very surprised when Sherlock disentangled himself from him and urged him to lie down, but he understood at once and smiled at Sherlock.

“We’re in no hurry, brother mine. We will meet later today – if you don’t have an urgent case to solve.”

Not even a ‘20’ case would have kept Sherlock from seeing his finally-lover tonight! “Of course we will meet,” he assured Mycroft while fumbling with the rich, black hair his brother’s torso was covered with. “But… you won’t change your mind again, will you?” Because then this would be the only time, and his heart would break but he would make the best of it and store it in his mind palace to remember it forever.

Mycroft shook his head and tenderly cupped his face. “No, little brother. If you want me to be your man, your lover, your partner – I’m up for it. Sorry it took me so long.”

Sherlock kissed him on the nose. “Believe me – I was shocked at first when I realised my feelings for you and it is something rather spectacular so I totally understand your hesitation. But we will make it work and since Mrs Hudson and Anthea are on our side, it will be a lot easier than anticipated.”

Mycroft gaped at him. Sherlock’s landlady being well aware of their feelings wasn’t news to him but… “Anthea?!”

Sherlock grinned. “Oh yes. She and Mrs Hudson have plotted against us. Well, actually _for_ us. Apparently your pretty PA had seen you staring at pictures of me in a not very brotherly way.”

“Dear Lord. And I totally missed it… Women are scary…”

“They absolutely are.” Hadn’t Irene and Mary felt a bit ‘not from this world’, too? Irene, making him involuntarily betray the country with her games. And Mary, sending DVDs from beyond the grave… Perhaps even Rosie was a little witch. Sherlock grinned about this thought but not for long. Rosie had forced him to read the fairy tales for her! After not asking for any for months! As if she knew -… No. That was too far-fetched! Was it really…?

Anyways! He was having sex here now!

He focused on his brother again, whom he had been absently petting. “So yes. I want you to be my man, my partner, and my…” He broke off, blushing.

“…prince?” suggested Mycroft with a smile full of affection and not a hint of mockery.

“Yes,” nodded Sherlock. “I want you to be my smart, strong prince, and I want to be your pretty, silly princess that you will have to save all the time.”

Mycroft chuckled and pinched his cheek. “I’d rather you were my smart, strong prince, too, and took very good care of yourself so there would be no reason to save you.”

“That sounds boring.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Sherlock smiled. “No, it really doesn't. Nothing will ever get boring between us. I love you, Mycroft. I always did even though I didn’t show you. As a brother, I mean, and now it is so much… deeper.” And he would have never realised that on his own, and he knew that he would forever be grateful for the meddling of two very wise women and, possibly, even a four-year-old girl.

Mycroft looked decidedly touched. He had clearly not expected such a quick love confession. But the days of despising sentiment were over for both Holmes brothers now. “I love you, too, little brother. I have done from the moment I first saw you when you were a wrinkled, rosy baby and I will still love you when I take my last breath. And nothing could make me happier than being with you in any way you desire.”

“Speaking of desire…” Sherlock smiled at him, his hand wrapping around his brother’s giant cock – he had estimated very well in his dreams… His eyes were wet and he didn’t even care.

They kissed again while Sherlock was stroking up and down on Mycroft's hot penis, catching the puddle of pre-come at the tip with his thumb and using it to ease his way. He didn’t have any sexual experience apart from with himself – but while doing this, it was enough, and Mycroft would teach him everything else he had to know.

He fleetingly thought of the previous lovers Mycroft must have had, and a pang of jealousy jolted through his heart. But it was silly of course. The past didn’t count, and it was probably for the better that not both of them were virgins… He didn’t really feel like one though after experiencing all these sexy dreams. But the reality did not only surpass everything he had dreamt about, it also felt more, well, _real_. He finally began to explore Mycroft's body in the same stunning way that Mycroft had done for him, and when he eventually had a mouthful of large wet cock – and his mouth was _very_ full – and Mycroft started panting and rolling his eyes in pleasure and grabbing Sherlock's curls and begging him for more, he hurled himself into his very first blowjob with vigour – and soon found out how it felt to have his mouth flooded with creamy come.

When Sherlock had finished gagging and swallowing most of the semen and wiping tears from his face and was being petted and soothed by his big brother, who had cleaned his face with a tissue he seemed to have produced out of nowhere, he started to giggle. “They never mention this in the fairy tales… I mean those princesses are all virgins.”

“Too much reality for little children, Sherlock,” Mycroft said with a wink before he turned serious again. “You don't have to do that again if -…”

“Forget it. I will do it again and again until I'm perfect at it, and I want this fat cock up my rear end and I want to feel your arse around my dick, too, if that's okay for you.”

“Of course it is.” Mycroft squeezed him tight. “Two princes, remember? Equals in every sense. Giving and taking.” He kissed Sherlock’s cheek. “But we don't have to do all of this today, brother mine. Give us some time to discover each other in this whole new way, okay?”

“Sure. I can be patient. Well, I’ll learn it. But…” Sherlock pointed at his crotch, at which there was still a not-so-little problem to take care of, and Mycroft smiled and apologised and soon these divine lips were pleasantly wrapped around Sherlock's cock again and a hardly noticeable time later, Sherlock returned the spurting-favour and emptied his balls into his brother’s still eagerly sucking mouth, and it was all most messy and simply wonderful.

∞∞∞v∞∞∞

And so Mycroft went to work half an hour later, freshly showered but not wearing the suit he had been dressed in when he had entered 221B Baker Street earlier but the spare one he had brought. It was slightly crumpled as Sherlock had only very reluctantly let him go and there had been plenty of deep kisses at the door before Mycroft had – also very reluctantly – finally left. And when he entered his office, he saw his trusted PA look at him for a long moment before a small hand flew to a mouth to hide a decidedly pleased and amused smile, and Mycroft breathed a ‘thank you’ when he walked past her.

And Sherlock drank tea with Mrs Hudson and was incapable of not grinning happily for a single moment, even with three ginger nuts in his mouth at the same time. And half a day later, John and Rosie returned to the flat, and one look at John's face told Sherlock that the doctor knew exactly what had happened, and when he looked down at the youngest inhabitant of 221B, he saw something like innocent triumph and blushed so hard that his face felt like exploding, but then Rosie embraced his legs and John mouthed an _‘It’s all fine’_ and he felt like the happiest man who had ever lived.

And later the two lovers Holmes met in Mycroft's house and spent some wonderful hours with mutual explorations, and Sherlock felt even happier and Mycroft assured him that this was not a dream but their new reality, and when they were sated, they went on kissing until they fell asleep in a pile, and when they woke up early the next morning, they made love again, and no princess and no prince in any fairy tale had ever been as happy as Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.

And they lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the dream parts are taken from this site: https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales  
> All credits for the fairy tales goes to the Brothers Grimm, of course.


End file.
